A Mennonite Maid
Is having a maid a luxury or a necessity?
We learned a lot of lessons from hiring a Plautdietsch Mennonite maid. Not only did she introduce new Plautdietsch dishes, she has given us a small yet profound glimpse of life among those who are from the Old Colony communities and pointed out practical ways of dealing with certain situations.
At first I wasn't too impressed with her cooking. Now I have accepted my fate and moved on. Have you ever eaten soup from green papayas? Or buttered soup from young tender pumpkins? Or prepared flour tortillas with sugar? The last one created an uproar among certain members of our little family and for a moment I contemplated her salary. No Mestizo girl in her right mind would add sugar to tortillas. But a bit of sugar in the tortillas made by a Plautdietsch girl could be overlooked in exchange for her hard work. We soon saw the funny side of it though and honestly I appreciate and enjoy her cooking.
She also pointed out practical ways on saving food although we rarely eat leftovers in our home, preferring to cook only for that meal and feed what's left to our collection of cats and dogs. Then she also pointed out some sound ways of dealing with toddlers. Her most helpful advice was when our oldest daughter experienced a very sudden and very strong seizure late one night. It was after midnight when we finally returned from the hospital followed by several days of doctor checkups and lab tests. Our maid was extremely helpful, sharing her past experiences with epileptic children.
When our toddler was diagnosed with severe ear infection which caused 3 consecutive days of getting only 2 hours of sleep per night, it was difficult to imagine our lives without a maid. I wouldn't be surprised if we have learned much more from this Mennonite maid than she has from us.
Interesting notes:
From being at the bottom of the pay scale to earning almost equal to secretaries and front desk employees, salaries for house maids has greatly increased in Spanish Lookout.
In the past, before Covid, most maids charged between $35 to $40 per day (8 hours).
Last year the Belizean minimum wage went up from a little over $3 an hour to $5. However before that happened many of these maids were already charging more than that, between $6.50 to $8 an hour or even more in some cases. Compare that to an average male worker at a processing plant earning $6 and you might wonder why men don't protest for equal rights and equal pay. The tables have turned.
Maids are still in great demand despite the fact that Spanish Lookout has rapidly modernized and many homes have automated appliances.
The majority of maids in Spanish Lookout are non-Mennonite Mestizo women, married, single, young and middle-aged with a sprinkling of other Mennonite branches such as Holdeman and Conservative here and there. Plautdietsch (german-speaking people from any "Russian" Mennonite church) maids are difficult to find but they are around.
Based on what a gentleman told me, in other Old Colony communities such as Little Belize in the north, maids are certainly not as fortunate as in Spanish Lookout. They are mostly young women, relatives of the employer and only hired when the lady of the house is in dire need of assistance. The girl is paid around $3 an hour, way below minimum wage and even then more as token of appreciation than a contract. Sometimes the maid is given a length of fabric for a new dress or some other sort of gift instead.
In the Old Colony Mennonite community of Little Belize, women work just as hard as the men yet sadly they are often treated as inferior and earn far less than the men, according to a young lady I spoke to.
A. Mendoza
