There’s one in my apartment right now, cleaning. She addresses me in the formal you and calls me Senora Andrea. Did I mention she may potentially be older than my mom AND that I am paying her an amount, though good here, that might be considered illegal in the U.S.?
I don’t know how I feel about this. The selfish me is so stoked I don’t really have to clean anything – or iron – EVER! I like things to be super clean but hate the process of cleaning.
The not-so-selfish part of me is like “um please let me do that since you’re about 40 years older than me and shouldn’t be bending over like that.”
I’m sure the selfish part of me will win out especially since here it’s considered normal to have a nana who is paid between $10USD – $25USD for cleaning a three bedroom (or more) apartment. And it’s considered normal that no matter how much older she is than me, I’m the Senora.
For me there is no other option though – I call her Senora Ester too and also refer to her in the formal you. I can’t imagine not doing so… she’s cleaning my toilets for Pete’s sake!! Oy.
haha, I wrote a post about the exact same thing a while back. It's weird to have someone else do your dirty for you.
However, now that I'm back at my mom's house, it's like, man, it sucks that she and my stepdad will never have someone to do these dishes for them!
Yes, mine calls us Señora Emily and Don Rodolfo! I love her, and even though we use usted we're pretty relaxed and can chat without it being awkward…although I have felt awkward the couple times I've been home when she's there because I feel like I should help. Much prefer being at work and just coming home to a magically clean apartment.
We had to do without Luz for a while and managed just fine, but as soon as she was available again we snapped her up. Like you said, for under US$25 for a total apartment deep clean plus a day's worth of cooking, it just makes more sense to me than spending an entire weekend day cleaning (although I hope nobody out there is paying only CLP5.000 per day!).