Ever wonder what happened to Katjie (our domestic worker from hell?)

Remember Katjie? - our domineering, insulting and constantly-complaining domestic worker (described here)?

Initially her stay had been every bit as traumatic for me as I'd expected. She was constantly threatening to leave. This, in itself, had not bothered me - it was the inevitable unpleasantness surrounding her possible departure that I'd been dreading. So each time Nuha (7) threw down her socks instead of taking them straight to the washing machine, Katjie would reprimand Nuha, which I did not mind at all - in fact I'd wanted her to make them pick up after themselves - just maybe she'd have better luck accomplishing that which I couldn't. The problem was that she'd then storm down the passage in a huff, grunting that she did not want to work here any longer.

Then one day she awoke grumpier than usual. I could no longer bear being in the same room with her when she was so miserable. If, dear reader, you had any doubts about my cowardice, to which I so often refer, this little account should dispel them immediately.

I have no idea why she was so p!ssed off that morning. She came into the kitchen, mumbled a grumpy greeting in response to my nervously cheerful one, and proceeded to wash the previous night's dishes. If I'd ever wondered how hard one could throw a glass plate before it broke, I would have received my answer that morning, as she hurled dishes from dish water into rinsing water and onto the draining board. My stomach was in knots because, well, angry people can be scary. But this time, however, my anxiety was interspersed with mounting irritation and fury.

Then Shakeel (13) entered the kitchen, looking a bit annoyed (or he could just have been sleepy), but I jumped at the opportunity to get my message across to that beastly woman in the safest possible way. I turned to him. ''Oh no! I shall no longer tolerate grumpiness in this house. If you have a problem, say so. But this nonsense will no longer be tolerated. Keep this up and there'll be serious consequences.'' I ranted, slamming closed the cupboard door for added effect.

Poor Shakeel looked at me speechless, his expression saying, ''Huh?''

I stormed out of the kitchen before either one of them could confront me. I avoided her for the next few hours, until she cautiously crept up behind me. No, not to smother me with a pillow, but to say, '' You know, I don't think Shakeel was angry about anything in particular. Sometimes one just gets up on the wrong side of the bed. I'm like that too.''

I accepted her sort-of explanation and patted myself on the back. Cowardly I may be, but my sneaky deviousness had certainly paid off, as she not grumpy again....

Until an incident which sent everything downhill. One morning I received a knock at the door from a strange woman asking for money for food, electricity and her kids' school necessities. She was expecting a pay-out within a few weeks and was prepared to repay me. For some inexplicable reason I believed her. I wanted to help her. So I gave her what I had in my purse and asked her to come back when Mo could spare some more money. She popped in every day over the next few days to check if we had the money available. Each time Katjie stood around, hovering angrily, passing comments about what a liar the woman was. She was starting to make me really uncomfortable.

On the day Mo got paid, the woman returned as I'd asked. This time Katjie was more furious. She angrily and continuously paced past where I was sitting with the woman. I heard her commenting loudly about what fools / chumps hubby and I were. When the woman left she approached me and asked if I'd given the woman money. Without waiting for me to answer she said that if we could give this other woman money, we could give her as well. In fact, she yelled, if my hubby had electricity money to spare for this stranger, why couldn't he give it to her instead?

I was completely unnerved. I had no idea how to deal with this woman's audaciousness. We'd paid her a salary, with which she had indicated she'd been really pleased. It was market-related and much more than she'd earned before. So what made her think she had the RIGHT to any 'spare' money we might have, so much so that we should not be allowed to share it with anyone else? From that incident onward, she became quiet and withdrawn. She only stayed for another few weeks after that, citing personal problems as her reason for leaving.

Last month, unexpectedly, a relative of hubby's received a call from Katjie. She told the woman how much she is missing us all and how much she loves me (!!!)

Although we had not been 100% certain about the new woman we had just employed at that time, there was no way we'd venture down that weird and scary path with Katjie again. Thankfully, I think we've finally closed the chapter on Katjie this time.

A bird + a painter + four fish + the six of us = 1 family

I can't believe that I've never formally introduced the other members of our family (other than the six of us).
About two years ago we brought home our quaker parakeet for the first time. Shakeel (12), who was a huge fan of the Percy Jackson book series at the time, named him Titan.

Titan has assimilated into the family beautifully. He has firmly claimed his place as the ruler of the backyard. Unfortunately for me, despite all my attempts at gaining his affection, the darn bird seems to hate me. He tries to bite me at every opportunity. Since his cage is open all day, he is free to roam about the yard as he pleases - which I'd forgotten one day as I was hanging up the washing. All I remember about that moment is an excruciating pain on my foot - the little monster had left his cage and walked all the way across the yard to pierce my delicate flesh with his razor-sharp beak. Tears of pain sprang to my eyes immediately, as I shrieked - which just made him lunge toward me for a second bite.

I have no idea how to gain his affection. When the kids were at school and Mo at work, I was often the one to take his cage out into the sunshine, open it (daringly) to give him his freedom, fill his water and food bowls, and even fill one of the doll's toy baths for him in which to splash, should he so wish - and all the while, he'd be doing his utmost to bite me. 

As much as he hates me, he loves Mo. He becomes so excited when he hears Mo's voice after work. Mo is the only one to whom he will go without biting. He even kisses Mo on the mouth! He follows Mo's instructions to dance and will imitate certain words which Mo taught him.

Last year John was hired to give our home a long-overdue paint. We had never met him, but he had come highly recommended. While working here, Mo learned that he was homeless, so he allowed him to move into our separate entrance. John has been living here ever since. In exchange, he helps around the house doing some gardening and has started to become involved in Mo's sideline business - panelbeating and spraypainting motorcycles and vespas.

John is extremely creative and a real jack-of-all trades (which he and Mo have in common). He also shares Mo's creativity and skill, and coupled with Mo's innovativeness, I believe the two of them make a formidable design team.

While walking through Stodels or the nursery at Builders Warehouse, Mo would often say how sure he was that he could build one of those beautiful rock ponds from scratch. So Mo formulated the design and carefully decided on the appropriate materials to use for this exercise. Using John's skill in the building industry and Mo's skill at colour-matching (due to his spray-painting sideline), they managed to build two very realistic looking garden features.

This rock-like flower box (seen in the background)

And this fake rock feature with pond

 

In the pretty rock pond, there are now four little goldfish, named Gotenks (named by Tharaa after Dragonball Z character), Aquamarine (named by Nuha after the mermaid in the movie of that name), Kakarot (another DBZ character named by Shakeel) and Barney (need I say more).

 

In addition, the new domestic worker just started about a week ago. While she is a very welcome addition to the household, I wouldn't go as far as referring to her as part of the family just yet. But I'm sure that this sunny cheerful woman too will acclimatise in no time and become part of our crazy lovely family.

Katjie arrives- and lays down the law

Our domestic worker Katjie arrived at about midday yesterday. Or should I say 'returned', as she had worked for us until two years ago (as described in a previous post)

By 13:00 it was as if she had never left- and that is not necessarily a good thing. After a quick shower in her quarters, she came to find me where I had been hiding and laid down the law.

First there were the more reasonable demands with which I was expected to (and with which I was happy to) comply. These involved her new dietary restrictions, which have been introduced by her local doctor as a result of her stomach ulcers. So I am not to serve her curry or any spicy food, anything with tomato or fizzy drinks. No problem- I could easily cater for her in my meal planning.

Then she noted that she would tackle the rooms today as she had been too tired. I agreed- I had in fact told her to spend the afternoon recovering from her long taxi journey. But it seemed to me that she preferred to spend the afternoon tormenting me. So after we'd agreed that the housework would be postponed until today, she informed me that I would need to gear up for a really busy day as I would be assisting her. Um, is this normal? I really wasn't sure if I was just out of touch with the employer-employee dynamic. I really didn't know if this was a typical type of interaction between boss and worker. So I wracked my brains trying to imagine how my previous employers would have responded had this scenario played out when I had been employed by them.

Me (employee): "We are a bit short-staffed. We do not have enough monitors to report on all the important Parliamentary Committee meetings".

Employer: "I agree- we shall have to conduct interviews before the Parliamentary schedule becomes too full; by which time we must have employed sufficient people to cover each meeting. You should advertise the vacancies as soon as possible and then start the interview process".

Me: "Well, then you'd better get lots of rest because you're helping me. There's no way I'm tackling that laborious task by myself".

Now, it has been a while since I've been in the formal work environment, but something tells me that that conversation would not have ended well- for me. But in my upside-down world where my domestic workers completely take control of my household, while I hide in my room (or wherever they aren't), that type of interaction is quite typical.

Then she looked at Aisha, who was so delighted to have a person other than me with whom to play (or so the poor thing thought).

Katjie: How old is she?

Me: She turned two in November.

Katjie: I assumed that she would be in creche or daycare or something by now.
[Me- panicking- is that why she had agreed to come back?]

Me: No she's still too young- and I am at home, so there is no reason to send her to daycare. I still want to spend time with my baby.
Is that disapproval I see?

Katjie: Is she still as naughty as she used to be?
I searched her face for a hint of a smile, but there was none.

I was becoming annoyed. I am definitely not one of those parents who regards her children as infallible little angels, but Aisha had been about 4-6 months old when this woman left. What the heck was she talking about?

When the kids came home Nuha shyly went over to her. Nuha had always liked Katjie. In my attempt to break the ice, I asked, "Katjie, did you see how much Nuha's grown?"
She scrutinised Nuha from top to bottom. Clearly not impressed, she commented, "Mmmm, she's obviously not going to be very tall. She really hasn't grown much since I last saw her".

Fortunately she'd been speaking Afrikaans, of which Nuha understands a few very basic words- not enough to make sense of that much-too-honest comment.

Her brutal honesty took me right back to the day we brought Aisha home from the hospital for the first time.
"Mmm, this one is nice and yellow- just like Tharaa. Now you only have one black daughter- she clearly is as black as her brother- shame".

I remember feeling as if I wanted to clasp my hand over her mouth to shut her up before she inflicted permanent damage upon my child, who had been standing right there grinning with pride at her new baby sister.

Oh dear, I hope we haven't just made a huge mistake by taking her back. We shall probably  give her a few days to acclimatise and then reassess the situation. I hope that we will be brave enough to take the necessary action should it be required.

Katjie is a no-show

Our domestic worker was supposed to arrive at approximately 04:00 am this morning. She didn't. When Mo called her (because I steer clear of all potentially confrontional issues with our domestic workers, family, friends etc etc; choosing simply to hide behind him), her daughter told him that the taxi had failed to pick her up. She will be here on Thursday.

I'm not so sure.

This woman, named Katjie is about 55 years old. She had worked for us until about two years ago, when she left, saying that she wanted to retire from domestic service. I understood that perfectly and supported her, making various suggestions as to what she could do to earn extra money in her own town. Obviously she was getting tired of working away from home for such long periods of time. I understood that completely too . The life these women are forced to live, leaving home and often their children, for months at a time, is heartbreaking. It makes one appreciate one's family unit, and the fact that we can be there for them 24/7. I often feel guilty that in order for them to be here assisting me with my kids, they had had to leave theirs.

They are often greatly underpaid and exploited. We have always tried to be fair when it comes to their salary, working conditions, working hours etc. In addition, in our home everyone understands that they are here to assist us- not slave away for us. I have heard of and witnessed some of the atrocities which some of these women are forced to endure- very often by people with whom I was well-acquainted.

Because of the personal nature this particular employer-employee relationship can sometimes assume, and the fact that sleep-in domestic workers share our space and our lives so closely, this relationship is often fraught with tension. They live as part of the family, but are to some extent always subservient by virtue of the fact that you are paying their salary.

I have never managed to strike a good balance. Because of my nature and the fact that I see myself as dependent on them, I tend to relinquish control completely. Instead of this making for a more harmonious relationship, it often causes more conflict as they then find it easy to ignore my requests (to do tasks which form part of their job). When I try to assert my authority (I am hearing laughter in my head) as the employer and attempt to insist that a job be completed, it is often met with resistance; which is when I am forced to get Mo to step in. Although he is the one whom they regard with more authority, at the end of each relationship; he is the one whom they respect and even like more.

Often my relationship with them would have been ruined by the fact that I attempted to stand up for myself or stand my ground on a particular issue.

I truly am a wimp.

I really really hate this relationship. I am not cut out for it and I hate that I am so dependent upon it.

Aunty Katjie ended up working in a neighbouring suburb about two weeks after leaving us. I can only assume that she had left for more money; which was fine with me. We always paid the going rate, and I would have been happy to support her leaving if she had told me that she had been offered more money elsewhere (really, I would have). Leaving one job for a higher-paying one  is a completely normal thing for an employee to do, but once again the fact that the relationship becomes so personal often makes the decision to leave an uncomfortable one.

Someone I knew realised that her anger at her domestic worker leaving had resulted from the fact that their relationship had turned into one of friendship. When the employee left, she had therefore viewed it as a betrayal of their relationship.

The complexity this relationship sometimes assumes is often exacerbated when there are kids, who don't view the worker as an employee of the family at all, but as a friend or sometimes even a second mom.

So I completely understood Katjie's reluctance to tell us the truth as to why she was leaving. She too hates direct confrontation, which she had probably assumed the discussion would become had so told the truth.

She was not averse to passive-aggression though. I often wondered if she was spitting in our food when we angered her for any reason.

She was also not afraid to speak her mind. She became very sulky at one point when we had told her that we could not afford to buy a television for her quarters as yet; but she was welcome to watch the television in the house. She had threatened to leave if she didn't get a TV of her own.

So why are we even considering taking her back, you might ask. She had had a good relationship with Nuha and was just starting to bond with Aisha, who had been a few months old when she left. I know that she will not do anything to harm the kids deliberately and she had proven that she could be trusted with our property and large amounts of money belonging to us.

Better the devil you know, I suppose. I cannot bear the thought of letting a new person into our home and family- I just do not have the strength for that right now.

Before she agreed to come, she had requested R800 for her 2 youngest kids' school shoes. (I have no idea what type of fancy school shoes she was buying her kids that cost so much!). She requested Mo to send this along with R500 for the taxi.

Upon hearing this, I became really uncomfortable. It reminded me too much of her 'Buy me a TV or I'll leave' ultimatum. So Mo offered to send R500 for the kids' school shoes and would pay the taxi driver his fare when they dropped her here. She had agreed to this arrangement.

I cannot help wondering if we've just been had. I guess we'll have to wait until Thursday to find out.