The Other Domestic Diva - Your Helper!

Yes, I am talking about our domestic helpers. The very people who keep the Philippines afloat with their foreign remittances and bind our households together, yours, and mine – enabling us worry free work.

It’s an environment I understand so well, because I grew up with yayas.

However, my respect and admiration for them developed after I came to live with my aunt in Manila, where as part of my duties I trained a long procession of maids. Most of them were around 50 years old, saddled with an unemployed husband and hungry kids to feed. I called all of them Manang (an honorific title that means older woman). I oriented them on the basics of housekeeping, cooking food the way we liked it and how to traverse the maze that was Manila. Lest you think I was living in a grandiose mansion, I will stop here to describe the residence. It was a two-story mainly wooden apartment, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but no separate bedroom for the maid.

In the course of teaching them, I came to see the unvarnished truth of their lives. Their poverty had thrust them into the private lives of strangers. They had to live with their every move subject to the will of their employers. They lived through these vicissitudes, by keeping their values, a sense of humor and the cultivation of an indomitable spirit, which would not allow them to be crushed by what they did not know.

I learned a lot from them. In addition, through them I learned a lot about myself.  

Scared of the Phone
In the 1980s, the rotary dial phone was the main lifeline of the business world. For my aunt, a real estate broker who worked from her home, this rung especially true. Therefore, it was without exception a rule that everyone in the house had to learn how to take business calls. Everyone including the maid had to learn!

Unfortunately, each time the phone rang the sound would bring on a fit of panic in Manang, and send her scurrying off to the kitchen at a speed that rivaled that of “The Flash” (a DC comics’ action hero). She was so visibly scared that I took it upon myself to answer the phone all the time.

However, my aunt objected, pointing out there would be days I wouldn't be home. As it was now, her clients and officemates often complained that her phone just rang and rang. Therefore, I had to teach Manang phone etiquette.

The Teaching of Manang Commences.
“Lift the receiver and let your voice ring aloud” – should have been the first instruction. Instead, I assumed incorrectly that since she had seen and heard how we answer the phone, all she needed was a brief review, after which the butterfly would emerge from her cocoon.  

After some coaching, she says to me, “I’m ready.” The phone rings, she runs, and stoops down facing the phone. Without lifting the mouthpiece, she smiles at it and shouts, “Hello”. The phone, as you can imagine just continues to ring. She looks at me puzzled. “It won’t answer, just keeps ringing.”  

Back to the drawing board I go. We review the basics. I start by pointing out the various parts of the phone, emphasizing the uses of the mouthpiece. We then go through the motions of her answering the phone, getting a reply and conducting conversation.  

For a second time, she enthusiastically tells me “I’m ready!” when the phone rings announcing a call from another potential customer for my aunt. She runs to proudly lift the mouthpiece, and says hello. I hear the muffled reply, see her smile, and watch shocked as she puts the phone down! I ask her, “What did the caller want?” She says, “I don’t know, but I heard him say hello”.

It was then that I realized she needed to know the mechanics of the two-way communication process. We rehearse until this time I am at least partially sure she gets it. Not wanting to take another chance, I decide to test her skills. She successfully holds several short conversations with my cousin’s domestic helper at the other end. Finally, and unfortunately I feel we are ready to roll out the New Improved Manang.  

A couple of days later, my aunt on the way to the bathroom, pauses at my open bedroom door. She tells me she is expecting an important call from her boss. If the call comes through while she is in the bathroom, she confides in me that she prefers I take the call. I agree. My aunt caps this conversation with small chitchat regarding the breakfast we took. She tells me that it just did not agree with her, and then enters the bathroom. During this entire exchange, Manang is moving in and out of the rooms distributing the ironed clothes.

The phone rings. Just as before, but this time from the opposite direction to before, and faster than “The Flash”, Manang dashes to clutch the mouthpiece and show off her newly learned skills.

“Hello?” She says in a still trembling but louder voice. The caller replies.

“Who is this please?” She fires off the second salvo. I nod my head in approval. Good. She is being prudent by extracting information from the caller.    

The caller on the other end says something, which I didn’t catch. Meanwhile Manang is nodding her head as if to indicate understanding of what the caller is telling her. As for me, I’m mentally noting needed improvements. For instance, I think that I should remind her to interject phrases like, “Yes, I understand” or “I get it.” Meantime Manang continues to nod and smile at the phone caller who can’t see her.  

“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Tirol, I’ll be sure to remind her of the appointment.” She says with finality. My heart is almost bursting with pride at having graduated an honor student from Mylene’s school of phone etiquette.

Then, she says, “Oh, yes ma’am, my employer Mrs. Gomez is in the bathroom. She’s making poo-poo. Don’t worry, she says in a solicitous tone. I’ll tell her you called up.”

To this day, I wonder what it was that I somehow failed to teach her. However, for the life of me, I cannot pinpoint exactly where I made the mistake.

Manang Time to Eat. I would always remind Manang Cansing to call us for the meal. However, she had her own peculiar thinking about this. In Manang’s mind, announcing mealtime seemed to be an unnecessary task. One day, especially famished we requested that she prepare a meal ASAP! 5 minutes passed, then 10 and still no call for the meal. Wondering what could be delaying the meal, I finally go down to the dining room where I find the table set and our meal waiting to be eaten.  I then found her in the kitchen, where my exasperated request for an explanation was met with a patient reply from Manang “But food has been set, you're the ones who are late”.

Manang Where. My aunt couldn’t find certain pieces of her lingerie. During a commercial break, she asks Manang. “Have you seen some of my lingerie?” Manang indignantly lifted her skirt up and waved it about, asking, “Look, am I wearing your underwear?” My aunt rendered temporarily speechless, looked at me. Later on, she confirms that the maid wasn’t wearing her underwear or for that matter any underwear at all.

Manang Insufficient Information. I had apparently forgotten the most important piece of information; teach the maid, the name of her employer.

One sunny morning, my dragon grandaunt who has a habit of dropping by unannounced, and hates being made to wait, was madly banging at the door. I didn’t know who it was, but couldn’t run down since I was dressing up. Therefore, I asked Manang to find out who was at the door.  

Although the sounds coming through were muffled, I head the maid open the door, answer a question, and immediately after, shut the door.

Curious, I went down and inquired. “Who was it?”

She nonchalantly replies, “Oh just an angry old woman asking if this was the house of Mrs. Gomez."

“Didn’t you say yes?”

She replies, “But I don’t know who Mrs. Gomez is.”

I had to tell her in between breathless laughter that Mrs. Gomez was the name of my aunt, who had hired her. Manang went down giggling over her mistake, opened the door, and calmly informed my red in the face grand aunt (who had her mouth open in shock, when I peeked!). “Yes- this is the house of Mrs. Gomez and she is here. Then she closed the door. Okay, so I’m not perfect, I incorrectly assumed she’d usher the guest in.  


Manang Lazy-eyed
The candidate for the helper position looked neat and clean, there was just one problem, she had a lazy eye that kept looking everywhere except at my aunt, who was interviewing her for the job.

An hour into the conversation, my aunt gave up being an adult and said, “Look, I hope you aren’t offended. However, I don’t know which of your eyes I should be looking at because one eye keeps wandering, and the other just stares straight at me. It is so disconcerting.  Which eye should I be looking at while I talk to you?”

The helper chuckled, and said, “Well, you can look at either eye; I’ll still be looking at you anyway.”

Manang Pink Raisins
This Manang was rather shy about fixing herself a snack. Late one afternoon, I checked on her. She looked dazed. I asked her. “What did you eat?” She tells me she ate some pink raisins, which have given her a terrible headache and she feels like vomiting.

Pink raisins. We don’t have any. I asked her to show me the box. Pink raisins? Oh my gosh, it was rat poison!  

What’s a person to do with domestic helpers? Or, that matter without them?

Your domestic helper gives you peace of mind. She’ll mother your children, work with the limited budget you give her for the groceries and fiercely guard your refrigerator, jewelry and enforce your house rules.

She’ll work tirelessly through the night without a complaint. She has boundless hope, patience, and a sense of humor to cope with your eccentricities.

Certainly – as the Filipina maids who work in Singapore so succinctly put it. ”We’re hard at work in your household so that you can run the country!”