On Monday the maid came to work today and said, “I’m tired of working with these Tongas!” Our last three gardeners have been from the Tonga tribe and she is from the Ndebele tribe. I asked why. Her and the gardener share our domestics quarters. They each have their own room and share the bathroom and kitchen area. She said they (the gardener, his wife and child) always leave the bathroom so dirty and she’s also noticed that her bag of corn meal (the staple here) has been getting lower and lower quicker than normal. She’s discovered that when she goes to the bathroom, the wife has been coming into her room and stealing her corn meal. The other thing is that the maid told the gardener if they ever needed a tomato or onion, that they could pick one of hers from her vegetable patch. Well, it turns out that they picked all of her vegetables! When she went to talk to the gardener and his wife about it, they slammed the door on her and wouldn’t talk to her so she began banging on their doors demanding that they talk to her. They just kept quiet. So she left and when she came back she found a clothespin on her uniform which was hanging on the line. This wooden clothespin was not hers (hers are plastic and his are wooden) so she went to ask them if it was theirs. They rudely said no it wasn’t. She got upset and threw the clothespin in their room. The maid was upset because most likely the gardener or the wife took a clothespin, had it cursed and then put it on the maid’s uniform to curse her. The gardener came to me on Tuesday to tell me that he has a problem working with the maid. He presented his side of the story. So I told him that on Wednesday we would all three sit down together to talk.
One thing I’ve begun to learn here over the past 3 years is that often times the domestics seem to act like children: they complain if they feel I am showing favoritism to one over the other or if I give one something and don’t give the other something of equal value. When they have conflict, they slam doors or yell at each other or don’t talk to each other. In fact, the maid greets the gardener each morning but he often doesn’t greet her back or gives a half hearty “good morning.” There is extreme jealously in this culture if someone has more possessions than the other person. The maid owns a bed and a refrigerator, which makes her appear as if she has money. This is reason to be jealous of her. Also, if one has more possessions than you, then it is ok to take from them since they have more than enough (this is not stealing, but is just taking). I’m sure this was what he was thinking when taking her vegetables or when the wife took the corn meal.
We all sat down on Wednesday. I’m not sure how much we actually resolved, but I told them “No more sharing and no more taking! What’s his is his and what’s hers is hers.” I also warned that if ever there were any other instances of witchcraft (which he denied), there would be serious consequences and if they couldn’t get along then something would have to change. They both understood that their jobs were on the line and they must learn to get along. Hopefully they will get along better as they are both great workers. We’ll see how it goes.