Memoirs of a Foreigner

I grew up lower/middle class. We always lived in decent suberbs for the good schools. But as friend of mine said about the neighborhood I lived in during highschool, we lived in “east-cobb slums.” If we had seen a real slum we never would have said that. But, growing up my parents never bought me new clothes and if I ended up with anything brand-name it was the luck of a rag bag, thrift-shop, or garage-sale (second-hand). We visited the government housing projects on the weekends, so I knew we weren’t poor, but I also knew we weren’t wealthy. I don’t think my mother ever bought a new piece of furniture in her life, okay maybe one piece. And I remember at least once that we didn’t have money for groceries and they just showed up on our door step…So we never had servants. We always did our own cooking, cleaning, and lawn care. Once we bought a house Dad would even try to fix things himself. Generally that only made the problem worse and more expensive to fix. We called him Mr. Fix-it… Now we live India.

In India it is much more time and cost effecent to pay someone to do anything you want to do. The press-wallas are my favorite. They come to the door and pick-up cupadie (clothes) and bring it back ironed a few hours later. Each day a lady comes and takes our trash. And everyday Ramwadie comes and cleans the marble floors. And once a week cute but strong little woman comes and gives mom and I massages. The rickshaw-wallas pedal bicyles with small carriages behind them. We open our front gate and if we are lucky there is a rickshaw-walla at the corner. We call one and they carry us to the metro station (less than a mile away). When we need to go by car somewhere, we call the taxi stand and Sire Singh or Mun Singh pick us up.

A life of luxury–and we are generously giving work to the poor at the same time. Never-mind the facts that we do not have central AC or Heat, the only air-coditioned transportation we have is by metro, and our oven isn’t big enough to bake a whole Thanksgiving Turkey, maybe not even a chicken. And we have floresent-tube-light in everyroom. I am not complaing–at least not yet.

But how much are we helping the poor by employing them? We pay 2rps per piece of clothing ironed, 5-8rps per rickshaw ride, 70rps per massage and less than 700rps per week to have the house cleaned (about 40 rupees = 1 $). Of course cost of living is different here than in the U.S., but many of these workers live in slums or only one small step above a slum. My friend told me that when he employs a worker he tries to think about his family and if they would do that amount of work for that pay (he is from a middle class Delhi family). Now I am starting to do the same thing–and lets just say we are giving a few raises!