Domestic help

Life in Nairobi is great for a number of reasons and one of them is the fact that we have two wonderful women helping us with our everyday life - Violet, T's nanny and Mercy, our cook. It's like T has four and not two parents. In fact, Violet is the oldest of us four and is undoubtedly the most experienced hand at child rearing. No one can manage T better during her tantrums than Violet.

I have had cleaning ladies all my life including my four and a half years in London and I would say it is all about 'comparative advantage'. Well, fundamentally I am just not good at it - have never been. Growing up, my brother would tidy up his room as soon as we would hear my mother's command from the kitchen while I would struggle for a bit, and finally just hand him my share of a chocolate and he would do it for me!

There are a number of opinions on domestic workers and the likes of Arundati Roy have taken a very strong stand against it. I do understand where some of the concerns are coming from given the horror stories about how domestic workers are often treated - underpaid, overworked, outside formal safety nets and sometimes physically abused. I don't think that the way to address these issues is to shun domestic workers but to employ them at respectable terms and treat them with compassion. A number of us feel strongly about this and other such social issues and do our best at a personal level to address them. However, it is also comforting to know that all the civil society organisations out there are working constantly to address such issues at a more structural level- ensuring laws are enacted and enforced to protect rights of workers, facilitating the formation of unions to strengthen the power of workers to negotiate with employers and establishing government backed safety nets. Not all of us can be part of such collective movements, but isn't just acknowledging them a good start?

T's favorite game at the moment is doctor-doctor and Violet has been playing T's patient for the last 30 minutes allowing her to check her ears, put bandage's on her arm etc and given me the time to write this blog. I can't  imagine life without Violet and Mercy!