Ayi
Our ayi (maid/helper/other politically correct term) 'Sally' speaks a tiny bit of English which is just enough to enable us to communicate the essentials.
Unsurprisingly (or surprisingly depending on your point of view), she is very enthusiastic about looking after Toby and is slightly disappointed that I seem to spend so much time with him, leaving her to clean the floors, do the ironing etc.
While I had no qualms whatsoever about leaving Eliot at nursery in order to go to work, I do feel irrationally guilty about leaving Toby with Sally while I indulge myself by going swimming or meeting someone for lunch although less guilty if I am taking Eliot to school or food shopping. This is doubly pointless as for much of the time when I am out, Toby is asleep. Nonetheless, I am not selfless enough to pass up the opportunity of some 'quiet time' so most days, Sally does a stint with Toby.
Yesterday, my landlady came round to pay some workmen. As soon as she arrived, Sally proudly scooped Toby off the floor and proceeded to extol his virtues. While I don't understand exactly what she was saying, there can be no doubt that she was explaining how far he had crawled, how he had pulled himself up to standing and his other many achievements. Well, she may have been saying 'look, isn't this child outrageously fat? And he's so backward, he can't even crawl properly' but I prefer to believe the former. Somehow, the fact that Mandarin (or Shanghainese) was the language of the moment, gave Sally what she felt was the right to appropriate Toby. For half an hour, she continued to hold him and elicit admiring coos from our landlady, leaving me to hover aimlessly in the background.
One of the main reasons to have an ayi is not one that I would have predicted. It is because the counters in the kitchen are about a foot lower than they would be in Europe and we are actually endangering our health and our backs if we try to cook or clean up in it. I consistently bang my head on the extractor hood which is at eye level and Jamie can barely see the counters they are so far away from him.
We assume that Sally is happy in her job. She spends a lot of time singing to herself as she works. Her favourites are 'Old MacDonald' and 'Jingle Bells'. Needless to say, this drives me insane but it would hardly be reasonable to ask her to stop and as Jamie says, if the biggest complaint you have about your ayi is that she walks around singing, you aren't doing too badly. My response is to crank up the music and sing more loudly than she does.
Unsurprisingly (or surprisingly depending on your point of view), she is very enthusiastic about looking after Toby and is slightly disappointed that I seem to spend so much time with him, leaving her to clean the floors, do the ironing etc.
While I had no qualms whatsoever about leaving Eliot at nursery in order to go to work, I do feel irrationally guilty about leaving Toby with Sally while I indulge myself by going swimming or meeting someone for lunch although less guilty if I am taking Eliot to school or food shopping. This is doubly pointless as for much of the time when I am out, Toby is asleep. Nonetheless, I am not selfless enough to pass up the opportunity of some 'quiet time' so most days, Sally does a stint with Toby.
Yesterday, my landlady came round to pay some workmen. As soon as she arrived, Sally proudly scooped Toby off the floor and proceeded to extol his virtues. While I don't understand exactly what she was saying, there can be no doubt that she was explaining how far he had crawled, how he had pulled himself up to standing and his other many achievements. Well, she may have been saying 'look, isn't this child outrageously fat? And he's so backward, he can't even crawl properly' but I prefer to believe the former. Somehow, the fact that Mandarin (or Shanghainese) was the language of the moment, gave Sally what she felt was the right to appropriate Toby. For half an hour, she continued to hold him and elicit admiring coos from our landlady, leaving me to hover aimlessly in the background.
One of the main reasons to have an ayi is not one that I would have predicted. It is because the counters in the kitchen are about a foot lower than they would be in Europe and we are actually endangering our health and our backs if we try to cook or clean up in it. I consistently bang my head on the extractor hood which is at eye level and Jamie can barely see the counters they are so far away from him.
We assume that Sally is happy in her job. She spends a lot of time singing to herself as she works. Her favourites are 'Old MacDonald' and 'Jingle Bells'. Needless to say, this drives me insane but it would hardly be reasonable to ask her to stop and as Jamie says, if the biggest complaint you have about your ayi is that she walks around singing, you aren't doing too badly. My response is to crank up the music and sing more loudly than she does.
posted by The Heywoods at 10:22 am
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