Keeping a Housekeeper

I just finished watching the Japanese drama "Kaseifu no Mita". The drama is about a housekeeper named Mita Akari. She is a skilled housekeeper but she seems distant. She doesn't interact so much with the people she works for. I found the drama amazing. I've never seen such a drama. It was very heartwarming. Never was there an episode that I did not shed a tear. Besides, it starred one of my favorite actresses, Matsushima Nanako, enough reason to watch it.

I was told before that hiring a housekeeper is not really common in Japan because it's expensive. On the contrary, keeping a housekeeper in the Philippines is a usual thing even for average-earning families. There are two ways to hire a housekeeper in the Philippines; you can either get one from an agency or ask your friends to recommend someone to work for you. The former is common in the cities while the latter is often done in rural areas. 

My parents both had to work when I was young so we also had to hire a housekeeper. We were able to keep two at the same time. One of them did the babysitting of my brother and the other one took care of the household chores. Having them did not mean I was able to escape doing household chores, I still had to wash the dishes. Once, I secretly asked our housekeeper to wash them for me, but mom found out and I got punished in return.

One of them lived nearby so she went home every afternoon while the other stayed with us during the weekdays and only went home during the weekend.

Nowadays, housekeeper in rural areas earn around $50. In the city, they get around $75-$80. Of course, housekeepers are also covered by laws that protect them from abusive homeowners. I was often reminded by my mom to treat them well like they are members of the family, too. Mom hated it when we call them "yaya", a term often used to address housekeepers. We had to call them "ate" meaning older sister or "auntie".

I definitely would like to have a housekeeper now. Doing housework can be very tiring, but I can't afford getting one. I'm still waiting for my parents to give us a housekeeper. 

global warming. :P

Red Lights

The lights went out, and after a minute of silence, the spotlight was on her. She was wearing a piece of cloth that barely covered her skin. The music played and she started dancing in front of the growling beasts wanting to have a taste of her. She is the star of the night club. “I managed to get through another night”, she told herself as she removed the heavy make-up that concealed her youthful but sad face.

Prostitution, in contemporary societies, is carried out by people to supplement low incomes. Men and women who rely on prostitution as their primary source of income typically have left their natal families. Without education or work skills, and often prevented from employment by child labor laws, such runaway children resort to prostitution as their only means of survival.

She is one of them. A girl so young, deprived of a good life, her innocence stripped. She doesn’t even remember how she got herself into prostitution. Every night was the same for her. It has become a routine.

She hates life for being unfair. She hates her parents for not being able to raise her well. She hates the church for condemning the job she has. She hates the people who looked down on her. She hates herself for making the wrong decision. Now, she doesn’t know how to stop.

The scent of the man she was with last night still lingers. She has long stopped believing in fairy tales. There is no prince, no castles, no beautiful dresses, and no happy endings. What she has are customers, a night club for a home, borrowed pieces of clothing for her show, and a lifetime of condemnation and suffering.

When night comes, she’ll be no different from those teenage girls whose stories are told by the red lights in the street. The music is playing again, and she’s on stage.