The whole idea of a fairy who does work for you started, I think, when my family would go to the Cayman Islands in the summer-with Kim, Stan, Steven, and sometimes others. Kim and I always shared and room and being teenage girls didn't make the beds and left our clothes, towels, make-up, books, etc all over the place. My mother just requested that we keep our door closed so she didn't have to look at our mess. The maids would come into our condominium every day, usually while we were out diving, and make our beds and clean our condo.
We started calling them the "bed fairies." Well, here in Manila we are fortunate enough to have a bed fairy, dirty dishes fairy, broom fairy, laundry fairy, babysitting fairy (which is Greg's favorite part-date nights whenever!) and the list goes on and on and on. Her name is Dali and she is a hard worker and so sweet with our kids. It is also a tremendous treat to have someone that is here during the day when workmen or deliveries (like bottled water for our water cooler) are coming because schedules don't mean much here-the person might say they will come sometime on Tuesday. She makes our beds look like we live in a hotel and changes sheets. We don't have an appliance dishwasher in our house here and I must say that is probably the chore I miss the least since she has come to work for us. There is this black dust that just comes in the house here (when we first moved in all 5 of us washed our feet off in the tub every night b/c our feet were black) and Dali sweeps all that up daily.
There are some funny things that we've had to adjust to and laugh about-
-I've never even had a cleaning service come to my house, except to clean up after we moved out of a house once so this is totally new territory to me
-It is a little weird feeling having someone else live in your house (Greg's company does a great job checking out people so I am not worried about safety)-it's just different. However Dali is off every Sunday and has a house pretty nearby so she sometimes goes home on other nights too.
-Trying to explain what, how I would like her to do things doesn't always work-I had asked her to leave laundry that she folds (yes I am terribly spoiled now) on the sofa near the bedrooms. One night the kids were getting out their school clothes for the next day and Scott didn't have any clean underwear or socks. Dali had gone home already. I start looking around-no clothes on the sofa no clothes in the helpers area-room off the kitchen, no clothes still in the washer or dryer. I was getting really close to texting to say "where did you put the clothes?" Then I went to Ryan's room and found ALL the clean socks and underwear in his drawers.
-It is interesting to keep Dali from doing the boys' jobs around the house (putting away clothes, taking out trash, picking up toys)-I have been told that many children here let their ya-yas (what dedicated nannies are called here-Dali is an all around house helper-cleaning, laundry, etc with some childcare) even brush their teeth for them and that especially Americans who tend more to desire their kids to be independent and do things for themselves have to work against that during their time here.
Dali has a son who is in college here and loves little ones. The last family she worked for had kids about the ages of ours. She will color with Ashley and writes alphabet letters for her to trace over-something Ashley really loves to do now, thanks to her teacher at school and also is the one who gets credit for all of Ashley's adorable braids. I have gotten to where (after 8 years of nothing but combing boys hair) I can do pig tails and pony tails that stay up reasonably well but Ms. Dali does terrific braids and I appreciate her for that and all the other things she does to free up my time for other things here!
Though when we return to the states I will go back to telling Greg what I had been saying for years before we came here-"I am the fairy! I make the lunches in the fridge (still do that here) make clean clothes appear in the drawers or at least in the chair, wash the dishes, do the errands, etc." There is a fairy at your house it may just be you-maybe a Tinkerbell outfit would help you enjoy your jobs more!
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