The servant class has become a source of great contemplation for me. At the house we are staying in, Chanbari House, I am the most consistent adult resident, which puts me sort of in charge of the household help. There are two young women working here -- they say they are cousins though they look nothing alike -- and they speak broken English. Budhamaya came from the kitchen of a guest house owned by the Head of the Board at Taktse. I was told that his love of toast is the reason we have 3 slices every morning with breakfast!
We watch them and they watch us. The cousin laughs behind my back at the way I say, "Haht Wahter." We hypothesize that Budhamaya has a crush on the driver, Mr. Bempa, and watch for signs to confirm or contradict our hypothesis. I feel disdain coming from them, it is hard not to feel judged by
by them while we manifest our private selves in their full view. To complicate things, we project an overwhelming desire to thank Budhamaya, to not put her out, to ease the blow of the fact that she is our servant.
Miss Pema, who works at the school and helps manage the comings and goings of visitors to the house, has an expectation for Budhamaya and her cousin that I need to adopt. She sees that they are responsible for the welfare of the guests in the house. It is their job to make our stay comfortable and it is their job to help us with anything we ask of them. If Budhamaya wanted to, she could learn a lot and turn the job into something significant, it is hard to tell if she would like that.
For now, there is wariness about the whole affair on both sides. I am curious to see how it will all turn out.
We watch them and they watch us. The cousin laughs behind my back at the way I say, "Haht Wahter." We hypothesize that Budhamaya has a crush on the driver, Mr. Bempa, and watch for signs to confirm or contradict our hypothesis. I feel disdain coming from them, it is hard not to feel judged by
by them while we manifest our private selves in their full view. To complicate things, we project an overwhelming desire to thank Budhamaya, to not put her out, to ease the blow of the fact that she is our servant.
Miss Pema, who works at the school and helps manage the comings and goings of visitors to the house, has an expectation for Budhamaya and her cousin that I need to adopt. She sees that they are responsible for the welfare of the guests in the house. It is their job to make our stay comfortable and it is their job to help us with anything we ask of them. If Budhamaya wanted to, she could learn a lot and turn the job into something significant, it is hard to tell if she would like that.
For now, there is wariness about the whole affair on both sides. I am curious to see how it will all turn out.
Chris, great to hear you are doi g so well and glad you are there. Hope that Corinna adjusts as well. You are all so brave to be part of such a different culture. I so look forward to your. Blog.
ReplyDeleteLove to all
Gini
We have very good friends who have been living in Uganda for two years now and also have had some adjusting to the whole concept of servants or "help". It truly was expected and they would have been judged if they didn't employ someone. They had a gardener and a house staff. Apparently there was a problem with drinking and romance and it was such a layer of drama and stress for them. Now they only have the house help (see I don't even know the proper name!) and its eased off somewhat. I think that would be so hard for me too Chris...I also think of the house elfs in HP, and Hermione's efforts to give them more rights. It seems helpful to really see it as their job, one they must be grateful for. Well...its time to go eat. We'll be seeing Glenn tomorrow! OX
ReplyDeleteCOngrats on all the progress the three of you have made during the past few weeks. Abraham and Cynthia continue to read your blog with awe and respect of all the sacrifices and quick adjustments you have made in such a short time. Thank you for providing us with a picture of your world.
ReplyDeleteSusan
You are questioning relationships that should indeed be questioned, and those relationships are making you uncomfortable because the caste/class system in India is rooted in birth rather than in economics as it is in the West, though of course the two overlap in both cultures. In the West, it’s easy to say of the poor that if they just worked harder, they could climb out of poverty… the eternal mantra of certain complacent and deliberately ill-informed elements of American society. In India, with class/caste structures being almost as immutable as they were a thousand years ago, such platitudes are deservedly met with derision. There is also much less distance between the classes/castes in India: over here, the functionally illiterate single mother from Lawrence who is barely making it to the next minimum-wage paycheck is not doing your laundry, cooking your meals, and cleaning your bathroom, as her counterpart in India is, so you can be relatively unaware of her existence. If she were, you would be just as uncomfortable, because you’d be aware of your relative positions in regard to economics, education, social position, and most of all, power. It’s all just that much more in-your-face in India. It’s probably NOT something you will get used to… or you should worry if you do!
ReplyDeleteAt one point in undergrad I was learning Swahili in a rental house on the island Lamu, off Kenya. The house came with a "house boy." I spent a lot of time thinking about my problem with the house boy. In Swahili culture people were named after something related to their birth. And his name actually was Matata (Problem)! Many decades later in the US, I have a Brazilian woman helping clean my house 1x every other week. I think I pay her well, but it causes me incredible awkwardness even now.
ReplyDelete