Finding house help…y a pas de problème!!

In Mali, anyone who can afford to rent a house is expected to employ a guard and a maid/housekeeper to do some cleaning and cooking.
Having help around the house sounds so wonderful, but getting it organized has been a bit of a challenge. I’ve always managed to avoid employing house help. In Peru, although we lived in places with maid’s quarters, we never hired one. Here in Mali, with both of us working, we figure we should be contributing to the local work force. Our idea is also to try to increase our guard’s or our housekeeper’s skill set so that they can eventually find a better job or charge more.
It’s a bit awkward for us. We’ve never hired help before and we’re not sure what the “job descriptions” should look like. We’d also both like our privacy. Tons of questions are running through our minds…some of which include: “What’s a decent salary? Where will the guard sleep? Will the guard be in the courtyard while we’re enjoying it or using the pool? Do we feed him even though we never know when we’ll be home? “

When we agreed to rent the house, the land lord told us he had a guard and asked us whether we would keep him. We said yes. The landlord has been paying Alou (the guard) 20,000 CFAs per month (about $50) and provides him with a place to live. Alou is more of a houseboy than a guard. He lives in the garage and has been helping the landlord with the upkeep of the house. The CECI driver we were with told us afterwards that 20,000 is little for a guard and suggested we find some other work for him to do around the house and increase his salary. Our yard is big and has a lot of greenery which needs to be trimmed on a regular basis. There was also quite a bit of clean-up in the yard which needed to be done before we move in this coming Tuesday. The landlord asked Alou to do the clean up and paint the kitchen cupboards. “Pas de problème!” was Alou’s response.

Saturday morning, a painter that the CECI driver recommended came to meet us at the hotel. The three of us jumped in a cab and headed towards our house. Because our street has no name and we’d only been to the house once before, Thomas and I were afraid we wouldn’t be able to tell the taxi driver where the house was. Thankfully, the painter had been to the house the day before so he was able to instruct the taxi driver. Once we got to the house we discussed colors and prices and the painter agreed to go to the market to get the paint color samples and bring them back to us in 2 hours time. One thing I didn’t like is that while we were discussing with the painter, Alou was lurking around as if he was supposed to be involved in the conversation. Neither Thomas nor I said anything, but we now realize that we probably should have. He really doesn’t need to know what we pay for things and services!

Thomas asked Alou if he could trim the hedges and create more of a path for us to walk up to the house so that we don’t have to bush-wack to get to the front door. “Pas de problème,” he said and then proceeded to tell us he didn’t have any scissors but said he could get some for 10,000 CFAs. Things here are super expensive as they all have to be imported from elsewhere so I wouldn’t be surprised if gardening scissors were that much, but we wanted to check for ourselves first. Thomas told him to hold on and wait until we decided what to do. “Pas de problème!”
We left the house to explore our new neighborhood and returned two hours later with a bottle of bleach, a broom, and some rags for Alou to do a bit of cleaning before we move in. Alou had his friend were in the yard doing the gardening with a machete. We were glad that he’d taken initiative but I also immediately got the feeling that this was going to cost us. While Alou showed me how he was cleaning the closets, he told me that we’d have to give his friend 10,000 CFA for his work. I must have looked stunned because he asked, “C’est beaucoup?” I ended up giving the guy 5000 CFA and as Thomas and I left the house we realized we’d just paid a guy $12 for cutting our hedge….which is way too much! The fact that Alou had originally asked me to pay 50% of his own monthly salary also really ticked us off. I’m sure he was testing us. He’d overheard how much we were paying painters and may have thought that $12 was nothing for us.

Thomas’ blood boiled for about an hour and we decided that this was strike 1. We’d give him one more chance and that’s it. I told Thomas that he’d have to deal with the situation. I’m too nice and soft and, although I’m here to “promote and support gender equality”, I think it might be better to have a man dealing with a man. Thomas has a tendency of being more diplomatic and stern. He agreed, but if/when we get a housekeeper, I have to deal with the logistics. Pas de problème!

Michelle