Employing "Domestic Staff"

We have a gardener, named Morgan Ngambi, and a housekeeper, named Charity Nachela. Charity comes for part of 2 days each week, and Morgan is around 3 or 4 days a week for an hour or so. It is a new experience for us to employ others to do our "chores," but there are a couple reasons why it is important/good.

Reason 1 is best described in the following passage, from a fictional story set in neighboring Botswana:

It was inconsiderate not to have a gardener if, like Dr Ranta, you were in a well-paid, white-collar job. It was a social duty to employ domestic staff, who were readily available and desperate for work. Wages were low--unconscionably so, thought Mma Ramotswe--but at least the system created jobs. If everybody with a job had a maid, then that was food going into the mouths of the maids and their children. If everybody did their own housework and tended their own gardens, then what were the people who were maids and gardeners to do?

--from Tears of the Giraffe, 2nd in the "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series by Alexander McCall Smith, p206.


Reason 2 is simply because it is time-consuming and usually back-breaking work. For example, the "wash" or the laundry is done by hand. I've tried hand at it a few times--when we needed some things washed before our trip to Ghana, and while we were traveling--definitely HARD work. I had to be careful not to break my back, literally. Though Ryan complemented me for getting out a tough stain just as well as Charity can, I have even more respect for her now that I've done a piece of the work she does for us.

I am SO very thankful for our "domestic staff."

Thank you, Charity! Thank you, Morgan!