House Girl

April 6, 2010

I have just returned home to Mkuu after two weeks of training in Iringa and a week visiting my host family in Morogoro.  I had a good time visiting with fellow Americans and Tanzanians too, but it is nice to be home. 

I have mentioned before how much time it takes to do even a simple task in a developing country.  If you want to eat, you have to walk to the market, maybe through mud and rain, to buy your food.  You return home to light the fire (charcoal or wood), wash and prepare the food, and then cook the meal.  After eating there are always plenty of dishes to do.  Doing laundry means filling buckets (maybe heating water, maybe not) and washing and rinsing clothes by hand.  The clothes are then hung outside on the line if it is not raining or on the indoor line if it is.  There is a lot of menial work to do in Tanzania and so it is customary to employ a house girl.

I want to introduce you to a house girl that I recently met.  She is 10 years old and has completed standard 2 (2nd year of primary education and primary education is free in Tanzania) but she is now taking a "rest" from school.  I will just call her "house girl" because she could be any poor girl in this country, and as a house girl, she really does not have much identity.

Her day begins early before the sun comes up.  She lights the fire for morning chai and sweeps the yard.  She prepares breakfast, cleans the floors and helps the young children get ready for school.  As they go off to school laughing and talking with their friends, she remains behind to continue with her chores.  She is only 10.

Her mistress is really a kind person.  She bought her house girl a new pair of shoes and had a fundi make her a dress for the child to wear to church.  She also had one of her old dresses altered for house girl to wear as well. However, nothing house girl does ever seems to be right.  She does not greet people properly.  She does not prepare the food correctly or on time.  When she sees the other children playing and tries to join in (remember she is only 10) she is always interrupted by a call from her mistress to do another chore.  There seems to be little in her life to bring her hope and joy.

I realize that this is only my perspective because I live in a foreign world.  I know that life has more to offer.  House girl does not know. I have heard her in the kitchen washing dishes, cooking dinner, singing songs of praise to God.  I wonder what is she possibly thankful for?  She is resting from school!  What are her chances of becoming anything in life?  What will she become when she can no longer be a house "girl"? But when I listen to her singing, and I see her smiling as she works, I realize that maybe her life now as a house girl is much better than her life before. She has food to eat, clothes and shoes to wear, a bed to sleep in, a solid roof over her head.  She is no longer living in a mud hut that crumbles when the chickens peck the sides. Her stomach does not growl with hunger as she tries to fall asleep at night. 

However, I cannot keep my heart from breaking for her because I want her to go to school.  I want her to be able to play and to be a child.  I want her to have all that life can give.  She is only 10!  I hate it when she is chastised for doing something incorrectly that we would expect only someone much older to be able to do.  But I cannot give these things to her.  Here it is a different world, a much harder life.  Yes, her mistress seems harsh, but she is also poor and she knows this life.  She is training House Girl to survive in her world. We have the luxury of nurturing and pampering our children. The poor people in a developing country do not. I can give the child a smile, a piece of candy, a kind word, a memory, but I am beginning to realize that I cannot save the world.

Please say a prayer for house girls and boys all over the world.