When I was younger we lived in a small town.  My mother stayed at home and raised three kids, and yet we had a succession of maids.  I’m not sure how many there were (well, one at a time), what they were called, exactly what they did, and whether they were part-time or full-time (the former I would guess – could there be enough work for a full-time maid?), but they hover around the periphery of my memory.  I suppose some of them must have been nannies, but clearly none made much of impact on my developing psyche.

When I turned nine, we moved to the “big city” so that my siblings and I could go to better schools, and things changed somewhat.  My grandmother came to live with us; she would alternate between my mother and my uncle for stretches of about two years at a time.  I’m sure my mother would sometimes tidy my room and I know that my grandmother did from time to time, but the essential rule was each child was responsible for making sure that their room was in “prime” condition by Friday night.  This was the precondition for enjoying the weekend.

Alas, how the mighty have fallen!  Tidiness is no longer a top priority and while I try to keep the kitchen clean and organized, I don’t vacuum behind the couch as often as I should.  My biggest sin, however, is organization:  too many books, too many pieces of paper, too many – let me be frank – empty soda bottles.  So this year, just as last year, I asked my mother to come over and help me clean up the mess.  It is not a question of ability as much as motivation:  on my own I’ll clean the bedroom, clean the bathroom, clean the living room, but only one at a time.  I need someone else to help me – mentally – to clean the whole lot at once.

This time my mother brought along her current maid.  This is a lady who, I think, once a week or fortnight visits my mother and helps her dust their house and iron the clothes.  (My mother loves washing dishes, hates ironing.)  This is only the third time since I left home that someone has been paid to help clean my flat/house/apartment.  The first time was in 1997 in Finland, when I lived in university housing.  In fact, I lived inside the university itself.  They had cleaners who would visit my room from time to time and give it a cleaning.  I couldn’t really stop them, and I was new to the country, so I let that slide.  Then, in 2005 I moved into a flat that was pretty dirty and I hired a cleaning company to clean it for me.  (They overcharged and undercleaned.)  In the years in between my back had sustained its share of injuries and my style of cleaning a floor is to wash it, square foot by square foot, on my knees.  I would usually spend the next couple of days in bed with a back that hurt too much for me to stand up.  This happened in at least four flats in Tampere.  To be honest, I was too scared that I wouldn’t get my deposit back if the housing agency thought that the flat was not clean enough when I moved out.

So, that brings me to today.  The maid – let’s call her H – and my mother arrived at about 08:30.  We took a couple of breaks for coffee and sandwiches, but the rest of the time we were hard at work.  I did my share of the work, but luckily for my back there were a lot of things that did not involve intense exertion:  fitting new lightbulbs, sorting out important documents in my living room from the junk mail, a couple of lightweight repairs, etc.  When we finished at 15:30 the house was cleaner than it has been in a long time, perhaps cleaner than when I moved in.

I paid H some amount of money.  It was after all, not my mother’s house she was cleaning, she worked hard, and I was very satisfied with the result.  I’m not sure what maids earn.  Things have changed somewhat since I was a child.  In post-apartheid South Africa, domestic workers (as they are known) are contract employees with specific legislation, caps on working hours and overtime, minimum wage increases, severance pay packages, maternity leave, unemployment insurance, a union, training courses, etc.

But that is not really the point.  I paid H what the work was worth to me and according to my mother she was ecstatic.  I guess we both got lucky.  But I think I got more out of the bargain:  just to hear that she was satisfied, made me happy.

And I received another special gift: H and I were sorting through the contents of my fridge.  Many of the “experimental foodstuff” had reached the end of its life.  I’ll admit that some dated from 2007 when my cousin and her husband stayed in the flat while I was in Finland.  Most of this went into the bin, but hidden among the ecological disasters was a little treasure.  A Norwegian acquaintance was kind enough to bring me a kilo of brunost in January 2007, unfortunately just as I was leaving for Finland.  The expiry date said May 2007, but a couple of taste tests revealed that it was still in good condition.  It had lived in the fridge since it arrived and was vacuum sealed, and I guess it takes a lot to damage brunost.  (It has been famously mistaken for plastic explosives.)  So tonight I enjoyed my special Christmas present:  nice South African bread with slices of my favourite brand:  Tine’s Gudbrandsdalsost.