3 Month Mark

It’s hard to believe we are at the 3 month mark.  We were told that it takes about 2 to 3 months to set everything up.  I would agree that seems to be right.

Our last big transition was that our new domestic helper Eva started with us last week. For those of you who do not know, Hong Kong has a large domestic helper workforce primarily coming from the Philippines and Indonesia.  They repatriate their income back to their families.  They live with you.  The apartments have a so called “helper room”” in the back off of the kitchen.  They have Sundays off and usually do a mix of nanny, maid, cook and a lot of other things.  While Hong Kong has a very strict immigration and visa policy for these workers, their treatment varies wildly from employer to employer and as far as I can tell, these women have little recourse for bad treatment.  Some treat them as well as a nanny, some as poor as a servant with all the Filipino and Indonesian racist connotations thrown in that you can image.

So after about 3 “sirs” from Eva, I said, “Ok, Eva I am too American to keep this up.  Please call me David, or Mister David if you have to.  We are a team here.” She smiled and seems to understand.  I hope so. I know that 2 weeks won’t undue any hesitancy she has.

So how did we find Eva?  Finding a domestic helper is as you can image hard. While there are many women looking for work, it is hard to find the good ones. We got a lot of great advice.  We were blessed to have Eva come to us from a recommendation of another interviewee. One of the women we interviewed passed us along to Eva.  She was looking to leave her current employer.  We met, interviewed and got along great.  She is older with a grown son in the Philippines.

Eva’s primary job is watching Nicholas. One of the main challenges here in Hong Kong is the absence of any pre-3 year old daycare facilities for a working family.  They don’t exist. The assumption here is that one parent, a nanny or a helper stays at home.   Even at 2, the only programs are 1 hour so called “play groups.” Then after 2 and a couple months, the preschool starts to have longer programs.

So Eva watches Nicholas during the day. Our job is to book structured things he can go and do.  We have his playgroup at Woodland on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning for about an hour ½. Then we are looking at a Kinder music class, a gym class and rugby tots on Saturday.  While this seems a lot, it is just an hour and ½ each day.  There are also classes here at our apartment complex.  We are looking into enrolling Nicholas there as well.  Our life still revolved around his nap.

As a working family, that is the one thing we miss that hits home very day: First United Methodist Child Development Center in Charlotte, or 5 star day care/preschool,  or Ms Janice and her team!