Maids

Women in El Salvador can virtually be divided into two groups. Those who have maids and those who are maids.

It’s a word that I don’t think I’d ever said until living here. In Spanish it’s muchacha meaning young girl, but the translation used at my school is ‘maid’.

It doesn’t sit easily.

A recent Healthy Eating letter from Chayo’s teacher said “Please inform maids so we can work together to give your children the healthy start they need”. !!!

Maids earn about £4-6 a day, or £70-120 a month, for working incredibly long hours cooking, cleaning and looking after children, often only visiting their families in the countryside twice a month. Many of them are young girls or young women with babies or children of their own who they have left in the care of relatives. It’s common for middle class families to have more than one maid. I think all the children in my class live in homes with maids.

It’s another world.