Sun.Star Essay: Familial work

Sunday, August 21, 2011

THIS story is familiar: an Arab saying he shut down his flower and gifts shop business in Jeddah after his Filipino workers left to return home. “When they left, I felt as if I had lost my arms. I was so sad that I lost my appetite,” said Muhammad Al-Maghrabi.

He said, according to Arab news, “Whenever I see Filipinos working in the Kingdom, I wonder what our life would be without them.”

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With millions of domestic helpers somewhere outside the Philippines, what if they were gone for a day—no Filipino caregiver, no nannies, no domestic helper in the world?

Those global Filipinos these days are the earners in the family and the way they touch the life of children in other countries would probably eventually show, like foreign children growing up learning a line or two of Tagalog (if not Visayan) songs, or acceding to the unwavering Filipino sense of closeness with family.

But we can’t truly appreciate the Filipino DH’s skill and will if we don’t also think of those who stay behind, who stay home in the country, serving co-countrymen. To many Filipinos through the years, the domestic helper is part of their life.

The memory of my young years has my (nanny) in the middle of it all. She stayed in the family until I outgrew myself.

In the family, there were two of the “muchachas” (one, my yaya who also kept house while looking after me and helped in the kitchen; the other the kusinera who also kept house while doing the cooking and looked after me from time to time) and a “muchacho” who would later be called “houseboy,” the fellow who rode in a bicycle and went out to buy small things quickly needed in the house, like French bread for breakfast, etc., or who cleaned the yard and fixed what needed mending.

All these three are cousins.

Somehow, the setup was ideal. It was Grandma who started hiring helpers from the same clan of a southern town, then my aunts and uncles followed the hiring process, within the helpers’ clan. It was such that when there was a family party and all of us ward cousins met in Grandma’s house, the housemaids also had a reunion—my cousins’ yayas, who were themselves cousins, sort of partying, too.

An older cousin, who was then graduating from the grades, took me with her to her school to watch a program. I hung on to a school presentation where a young girl emotionally sang a song, tearfully dedicating it to her mother. Somehow, my yaya learned that song and would sing it to me at bed time.

The first two lines of the lyrics of the song got into my head because my cousins’ yayas also knew the song—“Ang tangi kong pag-ibig ay minsan lamang. Ngunit ang 'yong akala ay hindi tunay ...”

That’s how the memory of a Filipino yaya could endure in the heart and mind of the child.

Through the years, the reference to the housemaid as one hired to mind the house while the father and mother work has changed, from the “muchacha,” as I remember it, to “girl servant” (one who serves), or plain “servant,” to “housemaid” or “maid.” Then the term didn’t sound good at a certain point (“meyd ra man na siya”), so housemaid became “helper” or househelp, or finally, today’s “domestic helper” or DH, although this moniker, in particular, first referred to the helper hired outside the country, receiving dollars.

The local domestic helper is a babysitter, a cook, a house cleaner, a caregiver, a laundry woman rolled into one. If there were no such being in our life, a host family mother would have to stay home (and not earn), use up a lot of electricity by using the electric washer, scrub the floor, dust the house, fill up water in the drums and basins, sweep the yard, water the plants and, hey! where did the baby go?
In some other countries, the domestic helper is like an employee, and the homeowners are called “host families.” But in our country, she is part of the family, that is generally the feeling both ways. Like the family, she should be treated right, as promised (but only promised?) in a bill pending in the House.

The local DH, not just the global worker, needs to be protected and inspired, too, she’s family.

(ecuizon@gmail.com)