To give you a little background the maid is 26 and the nanny 20. They both come from poor families from a coastal town about 20 miles from here. The maid's family owns a very small house and share crops a few acres of rice land. The nanny's family lives across the street from the maid's family and owns a small neighborhood store and her father used to also work for the local government. They were better off and sent their daughter, our nanny, to college for two years. But about six months ago her father developed a heart condition and can no longer work. So they can no longer afford to send their daughter to school. They have known each other since childhood. The maid never finished high school but was required to work as a maid to help support her family. Her friend went off to school. When we hired the maid we already had a nanny but she decided to go back home shortly after that. So the maid recommended her long time friend. Her friend�s boyfriend is also the maid�s brother. Our maid has always spoken to me from the start but the nanny always seemed shy and aloof until the last month or so when she started to look at me and say good morning back to me and smile at me when I smiled at her. She even speaks occasionally now. Most of the time when we go some place and take Gaby she comes with us to watch Gaby and carry any packages we might have. At first I wasn't used to having a woman carry all my bags of groceries etc. so she would almost fight me for them. I'm more used to it now and just let her do her job. The nanny's boyfriend has no job other than to help his father in the rice fields. This is not unusual here, particularly for a person without a college degree. (People working at places like McDonalds, maids at hotels and sales clerks in department stores are almost always required to have a college degree before they can even apply for a job. Employers can do this because of the high unemployment rate.) They don't get to see each other much since our nanny only gets four hours off a week with an occasional 24 hours off. He is just in his mid 20's and tends to drink a lot and I'm told he gets obnoxious when he drinks.
Anyway last night, after about two beers, the maid was talking about her plans for the future. She said she wants to continue to work for us and feels we have been her best employer. (We are paying her, and the nanny, at the top of the wage scale for house helpers and agreed to increase their pay by 25% after one year. We are also going provide limited medical coverage for them when the house is complete since our homeowners insurance will include a hospitalization policy for them.) She said we feed her better than any previous employer and she likes the separate bedroom and bath she will have at our new house. (Many maids are given a corner of the garage to sleep in and are limited to rice and dried fish to eat.) The nanny has different plans. She said to my wife, "I want to marry a Kano like Sir." (Kano is short for Amerikano and the maid and nanny either call me Sir or Sir James.) At that point the maid stopped her and reminded her that she had a boyfriend, her brother. The nanny said not anymore she wanted more. She went on to tell my wife how wonderful she thought I was and how I didn't get drunk and abusive. This seemed to irritate the maid a little who then said she was going to tell her brother what she had said. They got into a discussion over this for a while but it was mostly friendly since the maid knows her brother has problems and they are still friends. But now it appears our nanny will want to get on the Internet on her afternoons off.
Carina said she was surprised at what the nanny said because she had not mentioned anything like this before. Given the little interaction I have had with her I was a little surprised at what she said also.