Elizabeth

When I was sick at the end of January I was talking with David, a friend/parent who lives down the street. He and his wife had two house girls and he suggested that I took one to help with cleaning since I’ve been sick and it would help them and help the girl. I thought it over and decided that especially since I’d been sick this was necessary. I talked to the girl and she wanted 10,000 CEFA a month (roughly $22 USD) and she didn’t want to come only one day a week she wanted to come one afternoon and then Saturday all day or until she finished. I agreed and she began a few days later.

Elizabeth is a kind person. I think she is about my age and she has a full-time job at a boutique but needs extra money for her 12 year old daughter who lives with the girl’s grandmother. I like having Elizabeth around and my house looks great too, so it is the win win situation.

A few weeks after Elizabeth started she came to me and explained that she needed to leave her house and so she couldn’t come to work for the week as she needed to look for a new place to live. I thought about it and asked my director as she rents the house for me and reminds me all the time how it is her house. My director said that it would be ok if my house girl lived with me in my three bedroom house, but she didn’t want her to sleep on the bed in the room as my house girl might make the bed smell like a Togolese person and the bed was bought for teachers to sleep in. I just stared with my jaw hanging off my face in disbelief. I truly heard such overt racist speech pouring forth in 2010. My heart ached and my stomach lurched. I was uneasy with having a house girl at the price that I pay but this was beyond. So I talked to my director a little more and then she backed off from telling me to have Elizabeth sleep on a mat on the cement floor next to the bed to sleeping on the bed if she used her own sheets and she didn’t make the bed smell. Mind you the “bed” is a four inch piece of foam that has been used for at least three years by various teachers who have lived in the house with their Togolese boyfriends. Needless to say the bed isn’t much better than sleeping on the floor but it’s the principle of the matter for me. This year my director added a rule; no Togolese people living in the house, and has stated it clearly over and over as if I was going to shack up with someone.
After gaining the thumb up from my director I told Elizabeth that she could live in the house with me and she jumped up and down hugging me in the middle of the street. She moved in a little at a time after dark over the course of a week. She told me that she did it this way because people would see her moving and would cause more problems for her if they felt she was going somewhere nice. Please know that first my house is about two blocks from her old house, and second it isn’t that much of anything to look at for people to be jealous over. This another example of something that we never think of in Western culture, but here this is true. Togolese people are wonderful but there are some who get jealous or find joy in stirring up problems for other people. Then some of these people go the extra mile and practice Vodoo, which everyone seems to speculate is behind anything unpleasant.
Since Elizabeth has been living here she wakes up at 5:30 each morning and does something; dishes, cleans the bathroom and shower, sweeps, mops, washes my clothes, or dusts. I feel kind of bad but she is thrilled that she gets paid and she has a free place to live. I’ve been scolded a few times for doing dishes or working in the yard, but I tell her I need to participate in maintaining the house too. My director has been OK too as I think she realizes the house will be in very clean condition when I leave rather than mediocre. She has even said that if Elizabeth (she calls her my girl) is as good as I say she might have a job for her. I told Elizabeth this but she is happy with her full-time job and cleaning on the side. Besides, who wants to willingly work for a racist person if you can help it!!! I hope I don’t get too used to having Elizabeth because I feel like she spoils me.