When we were younger, my siblings and I were lucky enough to have had really good yayas. Except for the yaya of my youngest brother who is still with our family, my mom married off the rest of our yayas to foreigners.
Do you remember the time in the ’80s when having a pen pal from abroad was so uso? Well, all our yayas jumped into the bandwagon and soon enough were enjoying regular correspondence with their foreign pen pals. When my mom found out about this she would take time out to help them write their letters as well as tutor them in English (their favorite drill then would be to converse in English – my mom would refuse to speak with them unless they spoke in English). Before we knew it, my sister and I had to be flower girls/junior bridesmaids at their weddings because when these foreign dudes came to Ormoc they swept our yayas off their feet!
Yes, we cried our share of tears when they left because we were attached to them and loved them like family but I’m happy to say that they have become successful and are blissful in their married lives. Two of them settled in Australia – yaya Ning has passed away but yaya Juling still resides there with her husband and two adorable children.
Yaya Juling used to make really good siopao. She started selling these in her neighborhood and her siopao became such a hit! I don’t know how many siopaos she makes but the last time she visited she intimated that with the earnings from her now famous siopao business she has been able to purchase round-trip tickets for her family to visit her in Australia.
My mom married off the daughter of one of our trusted drivers to an Englishman who was truly kind and gracious. In fact, just like the husbands of yaya Ning and yaya Juling, he also helped our driver and his family live a better life. He owned a factory that manufactured stockings that he supplied to the Marks & Spencer chain of stores so you can just imagine how much stockings they would send us. Anyway, our driver’s daughter became really well-off. She and her husband were blessed with two adorable children. Sadly, he succumbed to a massive heart attack in ’95. He left his fortune to his Filipino wife. She has since remarried another Englishman. She is happy with her new husband and they have a daughter of their own.
Richard and I have had our own share of troublesome indays as we have had trustworthy, for keeps indays, too. Their fortunes and mishaps are stuff that soap-operas are made of. And as employers we really just have to take them as they are and guide them the best way we know how. When Richard was still single, he would just keep his petty cash in an unlocked drawer because he had a trustworthy (or so he thought) manang who was with him for the longest time. He is not one to keep track of every peso and how and where he spends them. But unknown to him, this manang would steal a few thousands every now and then. Through the years she had stolen so much that she was actually able to build a concrete house in the province! She was terminated but Richard learned this lesson: in as much as you trust someone, you should not tempt them, albeit unintentionally, by leaving valuables just lying around. You’ll never know if and when they might give in to a moment of weakness. Just because you trust them doesn’t always mean they will prove worthy of that trust.
We’ve also had maids who showed so much potential we actually put them through school but alas, they would just fall in love and get pregnant. I cannot blame them for falling in love, everyone has a right to that. But it’s frustrating because they could very well have had a chance at a better future had they taken their studies seriously.
That’s one rule that I’m really strict with when it comes to our helpers. Before hiring them, I tell them that I do not tolerate love affairs within the household because they can get complicated. Our drivers have been with us for a long time, two of them are good-looking and also very much married. I had helpers then who had goo-goo eyes for these two (as did some other maids from our neighborhood) but I talked to them and told them that under no circumstances are they to carry on anything romantic. Of course, it’s easier said than done and about three years ago one of my maids married one of my drivers. I’m now ninang to their second son and I’m just thankful that their marriage has worked out.
Maids can be scary, too. We had a maid in Ormoc whom we thought was so religious because she would wake up at dawn to hear Mass. She later admitted to another maid of ours that she was actually in love with our local priest which was why she wanted to stay in the front pew all the time! Of course, our local priest had no idea he was the main attraction at Mass. To top it all, I woke up to a very chaotic household one morning because this same maid actually raped our macho-looking houseboy! And I always thought only men can rape women! She probably figured that if she couldn’t get the priest she might as well settle for the houseboy.
Early in our marriage, Richard and I woke up to the news that one of our most efficient maids was sharpening a knife in the kitchen because she was going to go to the airport to threaten somebody. Apparently, her boyfriend duped her into believing she was the only woman in his life but she found out that there were actually three of them. She was en-route to the airport because her boyfriend’s friend had tipped her that he was leaving for Cebu. Richard tried talking to her by telling her she should just be thankful that she found out sooner than later what a jerk he was. Besides, he added, what good would making a scene at the airport do? "Wala akong pakialam sa kanya, sir, gusto ko lang bawiin ang TV ko. Tinangay niya, e." That really made us laugh. She’s still with us now and has sworn off men totally. We couldn’t be happier because we want her to stay with us forever.
My lola’s most trusted helper, manang Cornelia who is now 75 years old, still keeps in touch with all of us. She took care of my mom and all her seven siblings and for as long as I can remember has always been considered part of the family. She and my lola would fight, yes, but they also loved each other very much. In fact, when my lola last visited the States years before she passed away, she took manang Cornelia with her. Before my lola left the States she told manang Cornelia to stay in the States because she felt that it was better if she could earn dollars. Cornelia refused and cried buckets but lola Carmen told manang that she would one day realize what a good decision that would be. Happily, manang Cornelia was able to settle and adjust to life there. She even had a very fulfilling love affair with an American. When she retired and came home a few years ago she had in her bankbook several thousands of dollars which she used to build a two-story building in the province. She now leases the building. She doesn’t have to work for the rest of her life.
The yaya of my dad, lola Apyang, never tired of bringing us Royal Tru-Orange and her famous banana cake, the recipe of which I kept and still bake from time to time. She would wrap each bottle of Tru-Orange with a brown paper bag and would happily watch us as we gulped it down. Whenever both our parents had to leave, lola Apyang would fly to Ormoc to be with us. Dad and Mom would leave the petty cash with her. I remember that I was into drawing and my passion was having a lot of newly sharpened charcoal pencils in different sizes in my pencil box. After school every day I would ask her for money to buy a new pencil and always, always she would indulge me. When we were in college she would still visit us regularly, always with an assortment of goodies. It was especially reassuring to see her whenever we would have a bout with the flu. She would rub our backs, pray over us, and press stampitas on our foreheads that, belonged to my dad’s mother, lola Mameng who passed away when my dad was still a young man.
One of my last memories of lola Apyang before she died was at our dinner table in Ormoc. My dad was peeved because he didn’t like the idea of my sister and I having boyfriends and I overheard lola Apyang tell him, "Ayaw Manuel, babay ang imong mga anak, normal man na." (Don’t be like that Manuel, you have daughters and it’s normal for them to have boyfriends).
I lost my yaya and I have no one else to blame for it but myself. Her name was Balda, I called her yaya Ba. Before she left for her yearly vacation she asked me what I wanted as my pasalubong. I said I wanted a monkey (I honestly can’t remember why). She loved me so much that she really believed me when I told her it would break my heart if she were to come home without the little monkey I so desired. Weeks passed and one day we got a call that yaya Ba was getting married. She had no idea how to catch a monkey and she asked a man for help just so I wouldn’t be disappointed. Well, guess what? They didn’t find any monkey but instead found each other. So there I was, left with neither a monkey nor a yaya. They have many children now, one works in my parents’ household in Ormoc.
It is not uncommon that our trusted help have their own off-days – when they have sumpong or mood swings. We just let them be, besides these are few and far between. They’re human and are entitled to these.
Through the years though, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that when you treat them like family, they will do the same to you and your family members. They are actually a part of your extended family. They are also everyday angels who are not always as appreciated as they deserve to be. But it’s never too late to start. Try to make her feel the warmth and compassion that is inherent in you, as often as you can so that they will surmise that hey, being a maid in the Philippines isn’t so bad.