A long post about maids and water and how sometimes making progress doesn't feel any different from walking backwards in the dark.

 In case you missed the horrible headline, I had to move apartments last month. It was a sudden move. We were actually evicted - though it's almost impossible to say that to someone without having them look at you askance.  You can see them wondering how obnoxious you really are.
Our last apartment was serviced. We weren't specifically looking for a serviced apartment at the time when we moved in - it was just a lucky bonus.  Actually, serviced apartments near the city centre are not much differently priced than unserviced furnished apartments, and this time we ended up looking at quite a few serviced apartments too- though ultimately the one we chose is unserviced.
The difference between serviced and unserviced is maids (and bed linen, though that's a different post). Our last place ran pretty much like a hotel. You put a sign on the door at night that says either "please clean room" or "do not disturb" and in the morning either the maids come in and clean your flat, or they just leave you alone until the next day.
I know.
It was pretty sweet. They would come come in and clean the bathrooms and the floor, wash any dishes, and make the beds, including change the sheets twice a week. They brought fresh towels and clean bed linen. One of the girls used to do my laundry until I made her stop (she washing-machined my silk dress! With Martin's jeans!)
I know. Believe me, you don't have to tell me.
There is a whole other facet to serviced apartment living too.  The apartment staff take of all the bills and the stuff.  Men would come and clean the air conditioners. Electricity and Internet and mains water and gas are all taken care of. And when I wanted drinking water I would just have to say to the receptionist - can you please order me two more bottles of La Vie and later that day the La Vie would arrive.
In my new apartment I have no staff.  There are security guards in the lobby, and there are maids whose job it is to clean the corridors and lifts and disappear the rubbish, but there's nobody whose job it is to look after me, in particular. In theory, this should be ok because I only work 2-3 days per week and I actually know how to make my own damn bed. But unfortunately, there are still lots of things that I don't actually know how to do. Like, order water from La Vie on the phone. And pay the electricity bill. And other things that I don't really want to do - like sweep and mop 150 sq meters of floor and iron half a dozen men's shirts.
So when my landlady recommended a particular maid to come in a couple of times a week I said yes please!
She's been twice now, and when she comes in on Friday, I intend to fire her.  It's not her fault, really. She's a nice person, but it takes her 4 hours to sweep and mop the floor and clean 2 (not very dirty) bathrooms. She seems to require supervision.  I went out for a couple of hours the other day while she was here, and when I got back, she was still here, and had only done the floor, nothing else. And she doesn't speak English. I asked her to order the water for me, but while I was out I got no less than 5 phone calls from La Vie - what's your address, and how many bottles do you want and your maid isn't answering the phone. So I had to go home to meet the La Vie guy and supervise the maid (sit on the couch) while she finished up.
There's not much in the world that makes me feel more like a horrible person than sitting on my tuffet while someone else cleans my toilets.  I know this lady needs the work, but I just can't bear having her around while I'm at home, and can't trust her to do the job well when I'm not at home.
I know.  Can you even believe that I'm complaining about this situation!  I'm sure you would all love to have a maid to complain about.
I said to Martin this morning that I will just have to clean the floors myself and he can give me $100 a month.   Do you know what he said to that? "After nine months you'll be able to afford a Lego death star!"

 Just what I've always wanted.

It's still taking me a while to settle into the new place, and it's not just about the water and the maid, though it is partly about the water and the maid.  The real issue has been that I feel now almost exactly the same as I did a year ago, when I first moved into Sweethome. Back then, I had a whole lot of stuff to learn. I still didnt really know anything much about how to live in Saigon.  I wasn't confident to use xe oms, I didn't know where anything was, or how the big dirty city worked.
And even though I have learned a lot now - I know my way around, I can mostly cope with the heat and I can ride a motorcycle, I keep getting stuck in ways that I wouldn't have had to get stuck if I hadn't had to move. There was a power bill posted through my front door the other day.  I had to use my translator app to figure out that it even was a power bill.  I took it to the post office to pay, and the lady gave me the Vietnamese 'no' hand signal.


 So I showed it to a work colleague, and he said - "Most Vietnamese people pay this at the ATM".  We dont have a Vietnamese bank account, so that wasn't an option. So I asked the landlady, and she told me to take it to a Vietnamese bank, which finally worked.
Moving house meant losing our pack of friendly xe oms. There are xe oms around our new building too, of course, but I don't know these guys. It's a very intimate experience riding a xe om - and especially as a woman. I'm not the kind of girl who readily wants to feel a sweaty stranger between her knees, you know? And our last guys knew all the places I wanted to go. We had already negotiated prices and I could trust them to do things like take my shopping home for me, or wait for an hour and hold onto my helmet.  I had felt like I was all the way back at transportation square one.  And forget trying to pronounce the new street name - its no better than the last one so far as taxi drivers go...
I say had felt, because yesterday Martin managed to get a Vietnamese friend to talk to my Mr Duong on the phone, and so he will be there (hopefully) to pick me up and take me to work tomorrow.  I'm sure the price is going to go up - but it's worth it to have someone I know.  for 30 minutes in the morning Mr Duong will be in charge of my life in Vietnam, and I can just relax.

Don't forget to tip your waitresses. They have families and bug problems of their own.

I used to think that I was the kind of person who was not bothered by bugs and crawly things. I'm not the kind of squealy girl that goes all stupid just because there's a moth around the lightbulb. And really, apart from slugs, I LIKE bugs (and stuff. Technically – slugs are not bugs. But you know…).

I even bit the abdomen off a fried wing'ed thing once. On purpose. You hold the wings and then just nip its belly off with your teeth. It was Thailand, 15 years ago and I was under duress but still...  that gets me points, right? (Tasted kind of like a salted peanut. Maybe a bit squishier.)

Except praying mantises. I thought I liked them.  They are kind of fascinating. They do exist in the south of New Zealand but not like in the numbers in a wet Auckland summer. And one time, I was on the bus in Auckland and I noticed a praying mantis - a big one - clinging to the back of the seat in front of me.  I tried to ignore it. Because - you know - I'm COOL with bugs. (Did you know praying mantises are carnivorous? Don't click that link if there are small children nearby. You were warned.)

It was a really FULL bus.

I had a window seat near the back of the bus and there was a young Asian student sitting in the seat next to me and his girlfriend was in the seat in front of him and the aisle was crammed with people and backpacks and that unfortunate tight feeling you get when you're in a crowd and there just can't possibly be enough air for everyone.

And then the mantis locked eyes with me. Have you ever really studied a mantis's face?  They have the steeliest gaze of any creature alive.  I tried to look away but it had me like Medusa and there was no escape. I moved  my face towards the window - my face moved but my eyes stayed locked with those evil green ovals and that is when it chose to leap.

I emitted an involuntary, visceral kind of groan - like the sounds that people make when they are having nightmares. A REALLY  LOUD involuntary, visceral groan. And the poor boy next to me proved that he was truly a hero by slapping me right on the tit and squishing the bug between his fingers. His girlfriend turned around - everybody on that bus turned around - to see what the commotion was and he held up his hand to show the green smear like some kind of awkward open-handed, snot-covered  victory fist.
I'm not an idiot. I like bugs, but I don't like bugs that might bite me. That includes mosquitos and sandflies and anything with an obvious stinger.

Oh and millipedes? I get that you're a marvel of nature, and have successfully tiptoed across the surface of the earth for a gazillion years but really - I prefer you on TV and not in my garden. I mean - have you ever picked a pebble out of the soil and then recoiled in horror as it unwound itself, all of its hundreds of little legs waving in the air? At once?

And can we please also exclude caterpillars and pretty much all creatures in their larval form? Especially those weevils that made a mass exodus that time from my pantry to my ceiling when Mr Martin was away on tour and it was night and the only defense I had was the vacuum cleaner and sometimes when you try to vaccum a crawling weevil off the ceiling it drops down  and lands in your cleavage? (And of the same era - Barney - I'm really sorry still about that time I invited you over for dinner and watched in horror as you spooned a live wriggling weevil out of the ground chilli.)

Just what is it with you insects and my cleavage anyway? Remember that time there was a shootout on the motorway and the armed offenders squad were surrounding our house and the woman was standing on her garage roof shrieking and while I was looking up at the helicopters circling overhead thinking "I should probably go inside," and that wasp came out of nowhere and stung me on the boob! I mean really.  As if there wasn't enough drama going on that day.

The other day my husband invited to come and look at the really interesting beetle that had blown up onto our balcony in one of these storms we keep on getting and was now stranded on its back and it was a FUCKING COCKROACH.

All of my memories of the Philippines are prefaced by this sentence: There was a LEECH on the bathroom floor. “What if there are leeches somewhere else? Are they in the bed? Strip the bed! I said STRIP THE FUCKING BED! Why are you laughing at me?!”

And now I am engaged in a kind of war where I am the only one fighting, and the only way I can win is if I clean up my shit because the ANTS. Who sent the goddam ants? Martha Stewart?

 
The ants don't care if they lose large numbers of troops. It doesn't bother them at all.  No matter what you clean if you leave a crumb out they will find another way to get there because as far as they are concerned that is their crumb.

I should really be celebrating the fact that the first 4 months in our apartment were almost entirely ant-free, but instead I woke up the other day having a nightmare where there was a thick trail - several ants wide - on the wall, and that when I spray’n’wiped it they scattered and pretty soon there were ants covering every surface. The walls and the bed and the cushions and there are so many of them that you can kill a million and it won’t make a dent.

(Hi Nana. There aren’t actually a million ants in my apartment. I promise they won't crawl in your ears while you're sleeping. Can't wait to see you next week!)

Does this mean that I have turned into that kind of shriek woman I am so contemptuous of? Probably. Butterflies moths and beetles are still mostly OK. The non-disease-bearing ones in their adult forms, at least. For now, though, I am cleaning as I go and my kitchen positively glistens.

Probably my mother-in-law would be proud.

Oh, to have staff!

I have talked a bit already about how bewildering I find the whole experience of having maids to be. I am not naturally a clean and tidy person, as much as I wish I was!  Actually, cleaning I can do quite well.  But tidiness is really beyond me.  I just don't know what to do with stuff.  Clothing tends to gather in messy piles on the floor, and papers accumulate on all surfaces.  Well, having someone else come in everyday and tidy my stuff for me has been a real (imperfect, mind you) catalyst for change on that front.

I am ashamed and embarrassed every day of my life! And shame is a great motivator, so I find myself doing a sweep of all the surfaces and picking up dirty laundry every morning before the doorbell goes.

And oh, how I love my maids!  There have been times when I've come in at night to a spotless, fresh smelling apartment and wanted to kiss them. In my real life, coming home to a spotless fresh-smelling apartment meant that my husband had recently been in trouble and was making amends.  Now, it just means that I've been out for the day. When we went away for the weekend recently we callously left the place in a bit of a mess - unwashed dishes etc.  And when we came back, it was as if brownies had been!


But sometimes they get a little over-enthusiastic in their care of me and I feel bewildered and dismayed again.

No!  You don't have to do that! What kind of a despot do you think I am?

Do your maids ever fold your dirty laundry?  Do you fold your dirty laundry?  Oh dear.  I'm just beginning to realise that maybe they think I'm extremely slovenly because I don't fold my dirty laundry.  I think I deserve a medal when I pick it up and put in the basket.  Are you supposed to fold it?

And of course I have told them many times not to bother with folding my laundry and just leave the dishes but what you must understand is that they are not my maids.  I am their project. The maids are in charge, which is just as bloody well, really, because I am certainly not capable of being in charge of my domestic life. 

Sometimes I feel like I am living in what is termed "assisted housing" in my country - where people who are intellectually disabled are helped to live independently in their own homes.  That is the exact situation for me.  They make phone calls for me.  They show me how to recharge my phone credit. And they fold my dirty laundry.

Waste not...

You know how sometimes you do something really dumb by mistake and it ends up being costly and embarrassing?

Martin got up out of bed to get a glass of water for me the other night, because I wasn't feeling so well.  How sweet! And because I had left the jug of water from the fridge out on the bench, there was no cold water.  So he got some ice cubes, too.

Then he came back to bed and left the freezer door wide open, all night long. And I had been working on stockpiling, because shopping is such a b*tch, so that freezer was full. Of meaty things.

So everything of course thawed out, and needed to be chucked. Not really such a big deal, but you know. Bugger.

We packed up all the stuff into a plastic bag and put it in the bin.  Not beside the bin - in the bin.

And the maids pulled it out. And left it behind.  Which I realised could be interpreted as either, they think I'm and idiot (given) and that I accidentally threw out a whole lot of meat - or - that they intended to take it, but forgot.

Today, I put it all back in the bin, and when I got up to check to make sure it had gone, I saw it all sitting in the kitchen sink.  The maid obviously can't understand why I would throw out so much food.

The problem is, that I am completely ignorant.  I have no idea what happens to the rubbish once the maids take it out my front door.  Well, that's not completely true.  I have some idea.  I know that it gets sorted through thoroughly - probably by lots of people.  There is a lady who comes down the street with a cart and collects all the papers and plastics and other recyclable things. I don't know what happens to food waste.  I don't know where rubbish is stored on the premises (probably in the basement somewhere, and probably not for long).  So it's not like I could just take it down and chuck it in the skip myself.  There is no skip.

I had to call the maid back and explain to her that this was rubbish, and that it is not safe to eat.  I told her that the fridge had been left open and that the food had gone bad. I am worried that it will be distributed among the staff and they will all die of food poisoning.

She said yes, and smiled, and took it away.  I will let you know if I get a different maid tomorrow...

Cleanliness is one step closer to god(liness)

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

That's what Helen Keller said. But you know, she was deaf and blind already.  She didn't have all that much to lose. 

The Saigonese are like Helen Keller.  And I know, when I think rationally about it that this bold and fearless attitude is a by-product of the fatalism that is predominant in many Asian cultures.  The idea that all life is suffering, and suffering cannot be avoided, and that when death wants to appear it will, and it cannot be prevented.  And also I know that I am putting a positive spin on it when I call it 'bold and fearless'. 

Behold the view from my balcony.  

Look at all those 2 and 3 storey high rooftops

Isn't is lovely?  All the rooftops glistening in the sunshine. We are on the 5th floor.  But it's probably closer to 7 storeys up, given that you have to go up a flight of steps to get to the ground floor, and that this building uses British counting - level 1 is Ground, level 2 is First etc.  So,we're on 5th, but it's really level 6.   Quite high up, right?

This is the view down between the railings.  See how tiny the motorbikes are?

So, imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw the maid here:

She was perched on the rail, cleaning it.  With a bucket and a rag and no fear at all.

You know, even my brother Joseph at 6 years old had more sense.  He is famous for climbing the pear tree in our back yard with a rope tied around his waist "for safety" - he said.  The rope dangled below him like a monkey's tail and wasn't attached to anything, but at least he thought about safety. 


Now, I'm not really down with having dead maids to deal with.  Just in case you were wondering. 

(And this all happened about 20 minutes ago, so I'm still kind of shocked.) 

I didn't want to startle her, so I didn't say anything to her while she was up there. But the handyman appeared (who knows why?  My apartment is like a train station of handypersons.  And suicidal maids.) and I made a horror face at him and gestured wildly.  And he laughed at me.

And then he spoke to the maid and I think he might have told her to get down, or to be careful or something because then she arranged her face into a very grimly determined expression and reached to ever more dangerous reaches.  And they all laughed at me, because the whole reason I came to this country was to provide entertainment for the Vietnamese. 

This little guy also climbs my balcony railings.  I am sure he was laughing too. 

Hahaha! The fat white lady is afraid!

What do you all think I should do about this?  Maids on balcony railings is apparently of no concern to the locals.  Or at least, it is of less concern than dust on the balcony railings. I considered a soft approach - maybe if I purchased a safety harness? But they wouldn't use it, would they? I'm sure that if I complained, that the maids wouldn't go up there while I was looking. But they would still go there when I'm not looking.  Or not home.  And anyway - there are like, at least 8 other balconies in this building.  And they all get dusty.

Sweet William thinks harnesses are for pussies

The tyranny of Babelfish

Before I start, let me apologise if I sound too much like a Mormon Housewife.  I read this article on Salon.com and have wasted several hours reading Mormon Housewife blogs since.  I promise I haven't started putting on makeup and changing my clothes so that my husband can be greeted with my delightful visage when he gets home from a hard day at work.  Nor have I purchased a hot glue gun.

Yet.

So, a condition of the rental agreement when we moved into this furnished apartment, was that they change some of the furniture in the second bedroom.

Specifically, that the great big heavy king size bed be shifted out of the room and replaced with a sofa bed. This is only a two-bedroom apartment, which suits us just perfectly - we don't want anything bigger. Actually, it's not that easy to get a decent two-bedroom apartment in this town.  Most people seem to want more room, or to want to live in houses in the ex-pat compounds. We have modest ambitions and not a huge amount of stuff, so a two-bedroom apartment suits us perfectly well - so long as the second bedroom can be used as a study room.

I think our Vietnamese landlady thinks we are mad.

Anyway, they brought us a catalogue, and we chose a sofa-bed design.  And they brought swatches of fabric and we chose a silver fabric.  The options were not many.  Most of the fabric swatches were heavily patterned or bright colours.  There is patterned silver and black wallpaper on one wall, and gold curtains, so I didn't want to add another colour - or another pattern, and there were no black fabric swatches. So we chose silver.

The resulting sofa looks nothing like the picture in the catalogue, of course.   Having said that, it is perfectly fine for what we need and we have now been liberated of the second big bed. I have draped the sofa with the pashmina my Nana gave me, which is black with gold threads, and it looks pretty good, though I'm a hopeless photographer and can't get good pictures.

ART

It's actually really nice in here at night time, because the lighting is really well designed, and the wallpaper and lampshades kind of shimmer.  Bless the Vietnamese love of glitter!

Can you see the glitter?

After the workmen had been and gone, the receptionist girl gave me a note she had prepared earlier.  It is the second time she has shown me a note, but the first time I didn't get to keep it - she took it with her.  The first note was after the bath was fixed.  It said:  All done.  Tell her she can use it in an hour.

This is the sofa-bed note:

Everybody loves getting letters!

It says:

How to use the sofa:
The first three legs spread and break the back
seats back seats pull down the three stars which
will become a bed to sleep if she wanted to
re-sit examination of three drag position. 
Three can do try.  Thanks her. 
Have a nice day. 

It was pretty funny, but I promise I didn't laugh until after she had left.  I smiled and said "Oh!  Wonderful!  Thank you!"

So, anybody got any ideas about how to use the sofa?

Staffed

Right now, I am sitting in my home, and my home is full of people whose job it is to look after me and my possessions.  I feel quite odd about it.

There are two young women who are cleaning the apartment.  We have only been here for two days, and in my opinion all that was really needed was a sweep of the floor and wipe the tables and empty the bins.  All things I could easily have done myself, but I knew the girls were coming – and it is their job. They need their jobs. 

I thought they would be about ten minutes but they have been here for an hour already.  The bathrooms have been completely cleaned and the bed linen changed.  I stopped them from changing the linen on the spare bed which nobody has slept in. The floors have been swept and mopped, the bins emptied, the breakfast dishes washed, dried and put away.  The tables have been wiped and all the surfaces polished.  The place is gleaming.  A natural slob I have never lived in such cleanliness.

There has been a problem with the bathtub.  Instead of draining down the drain, it drained onto the floor.  So as well as the cleaning ladies there is also two plumbers, a handyman, the receptionist and the building owner in the apartment.

Meanwhile, I am sitting on the couch trying very hard to be invisible.