Chapter 17
Just Let the Maid Pay for the Pot
I walked through the door feeling great!
As with most runs with Shadow, I had already burned through a large portion of my energy.
Shadow made Flora a little uneasy, so I placed him in his crate until she was ready to leave.
That usually happened within thirty seconds after I got home.
I was about to go find her when she entered the living room.
“Miss… I broke your coffee pot.
I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to.
I will pay for it.
Please…
don’t fire me.”
She wasn’t saying this.
She was speaking rapid-fire Spanish.
I knew it anyway.
She stood there, holding the broken coffee pot.
My words to her were not understood.
They were words she had never heard from an employer before.
“Flora, that coffee pot is not important. You are.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I will pay for it.”
I was assuming that is what she meant.
A cockroach went skittering between us; it drew my eyes—she noticed.
She slipped off her shoe.
She stepped on it barefooted.
My face made that icky ew scrunch.
She pointed at my discomfort and laughed at me.
I shuddered.
This wasn’t just a language barrier.
How could I possibly make her understand that this was more than translation?
It was a cultural breach.
A place where dirty feet were less of a problem than dirty shoes.
And objects were of more value than people.
“You matter; this pot does not.”
I couldn’t honestly say she didn’t respond to that sentence.
She did appear more confused than before.
I had to figure out a way for her to understand.
I took her hand and led her to the sink.
I picked up a juice glass and broke it in the sink.
I said, “not important.”
I knew those two words were close to the Spanish words.
She looked at me like I was crazy and started picking up pieces of broken glass.
“No, Flora! Stop.” I motioned to her to stand back.
I began to clean up the mess myself.
A thousand things ran through my mind, and they all ended in misunderstanding.
How do you bridge a lifetime of servitude?
We had this problem before…
When I instructed her that my children’s room was not to be cleaned by her because they picked up after themselves.
I had to stop her several times and put the kids to work before she accepted the rule.
Honestly, my son had a more difficult time accepting it.
He had seen the way the other children ordered their maids around.
The shock on my face as I heard him snapping his fingers on day one and ordering her to bring him a sandwich.
The Alabama Mama in me took over.
“Ah, Jesus save you, boy. I want you to get up off that couch and get your own food. We don’t order another human being around in this house.”
“But Mom! The kids at the pool do it, and so do the ones at school.”
Flora had no idea what he had said.
She was cleaning, oblivious to the English words and the offense they held to me.
“And if they jumped off a cliff?”
“I’ll go get my own sandwich.”
“Thank you.”
She didn’t even know the conversation took place.
She still didn’t understand or expect the respect that was shown to her.
How do I say so much without words?
“Rhonda!”
Flora’s head lifted. “Si, Rhonda!”
Those were the first words she had said that I understood with certainty.
Rhonda was the woman who introduced us to Flora.
Flora was employed by a colonel who left base about the same time we got there.
Rhonda took it upon herself to talk us into hiring her.
It was harder than Rhonda expected.
I wasn’t raised with other people cleaning up my messes.
That was my job.
Rhonda spoke Spanish and English.
I picked up the phone and quickly dialed my husband’s office.
She was his secretary and always answered the phone.
“Mrs. Jackson, one moment I will get your husband.”
“No, Rhonda, it’s you I need to talk to.”
Flora started motioning for the phone and pulling it toward her.
I handed the phone over.
There was a string of syllables and words that I had no hope of understanding completely, but I knew she was explaining the coffee pot.
She wanted to get her story out first.
She wanted Rhonda to know that she wanted to keep her job.
She would pay for the coffee pot to keep her job.
Flora finally stopped talking.
The phone was handed to me.
“Rhonda.”
Rhonda began explaining and explaining and explaining.
“Rhonda, no. Rhonda, listen.
Will you please tell Flora that she’s not paying for the pot?
She’s not fired.
She’s more important than a coffee pot.
I won’t take her money.”
“She isn’t going to understand that. Just let the maid pay for the pot.”
“Rhonda, you can make her understand.
She didn’t understand that she wasn’t allowed to clean the kid’s room either, but she knows that now.
Make her understand we appreciate her.”
“I’m not sure I know the word for appreciate. I’ll try.”
There was another moment of explanation. Mistrusting eyes met mine.
Flora handed me the phone.
“Is it okay now Rhonda?”
“She still wants to pay for it.”
“I know. Wait, she wants the phone back.”
Flora said a few more sentences then handed me the phone.
“She wants to know why you broke the glass?”
“Oh, I didn’t know how else to explain to her that objects don’t matter to me. She does.”
“I think I can help her understand that.”
She talked to Rhonda for a minute and handed me the phone again with a little more trust in her eyes.
I could hear Rhonda sniffling as she asked,
“Lee Ann, why didn’t you just tell her yes?
You knew she was offering to pay for it.
It would have been a lot easier.”
“I wanted to treat her the way I always hoped that people I love would treat me.”
“Put her back on the phone.”
A few more words, they hung the phone up and Flora was wiping her eyes with her apron.
Breaching cultures cannot be done by merely learning another’s language.
Daniel's Den 