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Help, I Need Somebody!
To Pembantu or not to Pembantu
I remember being so excited about our "laundry room with a view" back home in Hawaii because that's where I spent most of my time: sorting while the baby napped, washing and drying while the kids watched a movie and folding while they were safely ensconced in school.
The truth is I haven't done a load of laundry since we moved to Bali six months ago. Our housekeeper doesn't even do the laundry. Two or three times a week, Ketut hauls a drawstring bag to the laundry service and for about $2 - $5, brings back a tidy bundle to neatly unpack in everyone's drawers. Everything is ironed from the kid's t-shirts, to David's boxers to our sheets and towels.
Life with a full-time housekeeper and cook (pembantu in Balinese) seems somewhat normal to me now that we've settled in, but believe me, I did my time as an all-American "supermom" back home.
When we were on the final countdown to move here, my fantasy was to be able to sit down to breakfast with my husband and children while breakfast was cooked, served and cleaned up. Imagine…sitting down to breakfast with my family! Before Bali, I cooked, hastily served everyone and then ate my haphazard portion on the run while cleaning, getting Stanley ready for school and David off to work.
Our mornings in Bali are quite different. Ketut arrives at 7:30 a.m. with a beautiful smile, washes the dishes from the night before, sends Stanley across the street to pick up some fresh brown eggs (and to practice his Indonesian) and then gets to work on veggie omelettes, pancakes, fried rice or whatever we have in mind.
Of course, mornings are not always smooth sailing. We still have the lunches to make, the kids to get dressed and the teeth to be brushed. The baby has his meltdowns and I manage to misplace something of importance right before heading out the door, but at least now it seems somewhat manageable and a little more fun.
Most of the expatriates I talk to say they moved to Bali for the culture and experience, but stayed for the help and lifestyle. We are all in agreement that there is no better place for a family with young children to live if you not only want to survive the process of raising your brood, but actually want to enjoy the ride as well.
Amen sister! We have had a similar experience in Costa Rica…I knew that domestic help would be affordable here but I was not prepared for how these women would become a part of our family! While I occasionally still "check out" and revel in the mundane (Sundays only, really), I feel so grateful to have had the extra snippets of time in these past 5 years with my kids to read a book, take a swim or tackle a puzzle. Repatriation is not going to be easy!
Thanks for the comment, Leslie!