exactly a week ago, athalia’s yaya (nanny) left, never to return again.
let’s call her judith (her real name). she’s 20 years old, and she’s athalia’s third yaya, after the first one left due to a smorgasbord of reasons, and the second one, to get married to an architect (yeah, an architect! but she deserves it). judith had been with us for almost six months, which is just about the amount of time she’d get a pay increase. she, too, has a baby, just about athalia’s age. since her boyfriend left her even before she gave birth, her little boy was left with her mother. when she started working for us, she asked for a salary advance, saying the money will be used as boat fare for her mother who will leave for their hometown in leyte together with her son. that was in september last year. so all the while, we thought her mother and her kid were far away.
fast-forward to friday. after dinner, she freshened up, changed clothes, and went out, just as she always did every single night. we thought it was just one of those evenings where she’d have a chitchat with the neighborhood maids and yayas who have become her friends. but when my watch said it was already 12 midnight and she wasn’t home yet, i began to worry. after a few minutes, i heard a knock on the door, and a voice whom i knew was cristina’s, the helper from a few houses away and judith’s closest friend in the subdivision. i knew something came up, since it was really, really late and she probably knew we were already asleep at that hour. i opened the door and saw her with a young, dark-skinned teenager who pretty much resembled judith. uh-oh, i said in my head.
the teenage girl was introduced to me as judith’s younger sister, jovelyn. i was told judith went home because her son was sick and had asked jovelyn to “temporarily” replace her. (my mind was already starting to go crazy. son??? sick??? i thought the little boy was in leyte!!!???) to answer my question, jovelyn said their mother and judith’s son had been here in cebu since january. ooohkay, so judith lied to me. just a week before that, we were talking about the little boy, whom she said was still in their province. i then asked jovelyn how long her sister would be away. around a week, she informed me. hhhhhhwaaaaat???
the rest of our talk, i discovered more lies, and many other things i didn’t like at all. jovelyn’s 14 years old, and with a baby as well. uhuh, a single mom at that tender age. she told me she was raped by a certain guy once, and got pregnant. (somebody please give me a glass of water. this is a story i wasn’t ready to be told at 1:00 am, just when i’m dying to go to sleep.) she also mentioned to me that judith had left two previous employers without a word, and without even bringing her clothes with her. that was a really bad sign. after a week, what happens? jovelyn told me she also has work, and that she only asked for a one-week leave to relieve her sister. so, i thought, regardless of whether judith comes back, jovelyn will have to leave because she has other duties. here comes the worse part: jovelyn asked me for a salary advance. what were they thinking?! i was the one who’s been inconvenienced, the one who felt deceived at that very moment, the one who was already starting to worry about who’ll look after athalia while alvin and i are at work, and now, i also had to be the one who needed to pay them for all these? and i already felt this was probably their attempt at getting money from me for the last time. i decided right then to take the girl home to her mother. there’s no way i’m trusting my baby to a 14-year-old, not even for a week. especially not when i’ve discovered too much about her family. and i will have to ask judith straight to her face if she’s already leaving for good. i don’t need any more bullsh*t. they’ll have to start being honest with me.
the next day, we took jovelyn back to where she lives. it was a filthy, pathetic place. we saw judith there, feeding her little boy. we saw their mother, and jovelyn’s baby girl. at first, the conversation was light. judith said she merely needs to rest, and that she also needs to give her mother a break from the exhausting task of looking after two kids. so we offered to give her two days (weekends) off, instead of just one, so she could rest and help her mother. but then more and more “ad misericordiam” — appeal to pity — followed. they needed to pay their rent, their mother gets to eat only one meal a day, their babies don’t have milk, their father and brother are in jail, judith’s salary isn’t enough, etc. etc. first of all, of course judith’s salary wouldn’t be enough, what with her spending almost all of it on new clothes and new shoes. we were even the ones who had to force her to save part of her salary to send to her little boy! second of all, why rent a place when you have relatives willing to take you in? they had relatives nearby, but they said they decided to live somewhere else and rent because they didn’t like those relatives. (ah, ok, so they’re not willing to make little sacrifices even if it means a whole lot of difference if they do. they’d rather live beyond their means than swallow their pride.) third of all, what the f*** are your father and brother doing in jail? are you a family of criminals?
and then came the revelation i’d been expecting from judith the entire time we were there. i practically had to corner her to admit to me in a clear, understandable, direct-to-the-point manner that she’s leaving and was looking for a job somewhere else. the fact is, the very generous (yeah, right!) mormon neighbor of ours had already offered her a job at their restaurant for almost double the salary we’re giving her, and that she’s taking it. fine, and it took her too long to say it. we tried one more time to bargain with her and she agreed. she won’t leave us until we’ve found somebody else for athalia. but she didn’t show up at the appointed time. so she lied to us for the last time. i’m really sure that with her attitude, she wouldn’t last long in that new job. she’s abusive of other people’s kindness, and she’s never contented of what she has. heck, as much as i wouldn’t want to broadcast it, she steals!
judith’s and her family’s attitude towards life and work is pretty the same as that of most people within the poverty level. somebody gives them a job and they find reasons not to stay long and look for something they think is better, only to find out they’re still not satisfied. they don’t know how to persevere. that’s the reason most of them don’t progress at all. and they try all they can to extort money from those who show them even the littlest amount of kindness and empathy. really.
after all these, alvin could only say one thing: beggars can’t be choosers.
losers.
p.s.we’re looking for a new nanny. i hope this time it’d be somebody who’s going to stay long. just like the nannies of the old times, who see their alagas (charge) grow up from being babies to being adults, and some even stay long enough to watch over their alagas’ kids when they become parents. and yes, that goes without saying that we want the new nanny truthful and honest and kind and God-fearing (in the truest sense of the word) and of course, somebody who’ll take care of my precious one as if she were her own.
I look at my body now and I cringe. Big, flabby upper arms. Bloated mid-section. Invisible waist. Large ass and saddle bags. My husband says I am slowly getting to be a pear-shaped woman… although he says he doesn’t mind at all (which I believe because he is also gaining as much weight as I am). When people comment about how much extra pounds I have lying around, I always say in defense that I am on BCP and have more eating appetite than I used to. I also think the culprit is this 12nn-10pm work schedule I have. My body clock has never been good at adjusting and now it’s gone totally haywire. Eating late doesn’t help me at all, but I also cannot avoid it, considering I work until late at night and starving myself after 6 o’clock means going to sleep with a tummy full of gas.
Sealed Reservoir 