A domestic affair

Since the very minute I opened my lazy, Sunday-sleep-in eyes, I’ve been trying to get on top of the housework. And I don’t just mean the basic day-to-day of laundry and dirty dishes – I mean: deep cleaning -- every crack and cranny and nook and dusty cobweb! On days like this when my hands reek of bleach and I blush, all alone on the bathroom floor, for shame at the accumulated filth, I wonder if it’s just me – or do you also suffer from this same domestic affliction?

For example, our bathroom. The bath gets washed after every use – as well as the basin. The shower sort of looks after itself – though the persistent build up of that stubborn milky limescale on the glass doors is something I should tackle more often – but the damn fumes from the cleaning agent give my asthmatic lungs a nasty shock and it takes so long!! And yes, I’ve tried the domestic-goddess eco-equivalent : a dysfunctional paste of baking soda and white spirit vinegar which requires more elbow grease and brute strength than I possess! And so, window wide open, I dribbled limescale-remover over the glass shower doors, scrubbing it hopefully (and holding my breath) over every square inch. A thorough rinsing and voila! the shower looked fabulously a-sparkle! But the limescale monster lurks invisibly in the water-pipes, just waiting to begin its unstoppable, ugly destruction!

Sometimes I wonder if it’s that I was spoilt by the very South African tradition of having a ‘char’. Heaven forbid I say ‘maid’, so let’s stick with ‘domestic worker’, shall we? (By the way, as a quick aside, does anyone agree with me about how profoundly irritating and petty it is when ordinary, unharmful words suddenly accrue a new, derogatory – even blasphemous – meaning altogether? Take, for instance, the word ‘maid’.


Noun
1. a. An unmarried girl or woman
b. A virgin
2. A woman servant
3. A housemaid or chambermaid
[Middle English maide, from Old English maegden]

Now… Please… (sigh) tell me that the journey this word has taken from its ancient and simple origin is not a ludicrous one!? How did ‘maid’ become a swear word in South Africa? (And the more I think about it, the more I am confused by the stupidity of it!) Radio 702 DJ Jeremy Mansfield received a vigorous handslapping for using the word in what could only be called a rather unthoughtful manner -- see below:

“The word meid is defined in the Afrikaans/English Dictionary, … as a derogatory reference to a (coloured) maid servant, servant-girl. Although the term maid or meid can also be used in an endearing manner, we have no doubt that the term was used and understood in its derogatory and racial meaning here. We accept in favour of the Respondent that it was never the intention of Mr Mansfield to be derogatory of black women.”

Obviously, the way in which a word is spoken can speak volumes more than the specificity of the word itself – but was it really necessary to revamp an entire vocabulary? Yes, the word has been used with venom and violence, but so have other words describing certain vocations whose nomenclature has remained unchanged. So why this particular one? Our domestic worker began working her two-days-a week at our house when I was about 3 years old. We shared Eunice with my best friend’s family – and she really was like an aunt to us: walking to pick Melissa and I up from playschool, making us cold red strawberry jelly on hot summer days and the most delicious toasted cheese snackwiches. 27 years later and she still works two days a week for my mom and dad – in the same house… (this is a story all on its own – I’ll write more about it tomorrow!)

But back to the crux of the matter: can I blame my erratic style of cleaning on my cyclic nature of doing things (i.e. chaos jolts me into frantic, obsessively detailed order which slowly disintegrates into eventual chaos…) or can I blame it on having grown up with a maid/domestic who did all the big household chores like vacuuming, ironing, floor-mopping and window-cleaning so that I never observed and learned for myself? Here, in my little English house, I must be my own maid – and truth be told, like Eunice works two days a week, I should probably (I guess it’s downright unavoidably obvious) do the same: design a housekeeping schedule and stick to it religiously.

(I’m really intrigued by this idea of my generation basically being the last to have grown up with a Xhosa, Zulu or Sotho woman in their daily life – so a) I’ll be exploring it more deeply over the next week and b) how can I convince you all to tell me about your stories?! Do I have to pay you? Just kidding – but I am BEGGING you for your own stories, ideas and opinions – kapish? And besides - I think I've just scraped the very top of a very hot iceberg indeed - so the more that can be a part of this juicy and important debate the better!)

PS. Thanks, Jeanne, for your Bovril advice - and your delicious blog : http://www.cooksister.com/