HOME
PRICES / CONTACT
WHERE WE ARE
CUSCO
CAITH
PHOTOS
of CAITH
"My cousin Armando took me out of school. He took me out when I was nine years old and brought me to Cusco to stay in his house an take care of his two years old daughter. I didn�t like her because she was quite impudent. The lady was bad to me, for anything she blamed me. When the daughter burnt herself one day with hot water because the lady had said to me that I should leave her there, she blaimed me. Mi cousin stroke me, and the lady too, with a strap and their feet. They never believed me anything.
One day I was tired because it was already late at night. I was waiting until the water was boiling and then it overflowed. They stroke me a lot.
I didn�t go to school, although mi cousin had promised to my mum that he would send me. At my cousin's house I got up at six in the morning, and I prepared the breakfast for all. I took breakfast at seven, but alone in the kitchen. I would have liked to have it with them, they ate more things. (...) I cleaned the whole house before I took breakfast, I played with the little daughter, I cooked the lunch for all, but I had lunch alone in the kitchen afterwards.
In the afternoon I played again with the baby while the lady was resting. The litte girls of the neigbours came too and I had to have them play all of them.Then I prepared dinner. They had dinner at nine and then I had to wash the dishes. I ate in the kitchen. Sometimes I went to bed at eleven because I had to make the baby sleep before. I slept in the little room wher they recieved their visitors, on a little mattress with a cover. I never left the house."
After some years of work at different places where she never got more than 50 Soles (about 15 d�lares) per month, her sister brought her to CAITH:
"Before I was sad, I was afraid of anything and I felt that nobody liked me and nobody treated me well. I felt alone and was convinced that all I was doing turned out bad. When I got to CAITH I didn�t have so much fear because I know that there is somebody who helps me if I am in trouble. For example Vittoria, Jose, Marleni, they denounce it to the minors court, if they don�t pay me at my work."
At CAITH she also found some new friends among the other domestic servants:
"I have same friends now. They make me feel good. They are good to me, we play, we laugh, they give me some good advice. They help me if I need it. Before I came to CAITH I had no friends, only at college, but I did not get along well with them."
These passages are from the book "�Est�s bien? CAITH: La cultura del afecto con trabajadoras del hogar", Maite Rofes.