It’s confusing how people so loving can be so violent, as the news and statistics tell. While it’s never fair to spit stereotypes, Salvadorans are loving. ![]() This is one of the most beautiful thing about El Salvador. Rosa called Ezzie “Princesa” and spoiled her all day, and prepared beans and grated apples and mashed papaya and took so much care with the pillows and sheets so that Ezra would be just perfectly tucked in. Rosa Hilda took care of Ezzie in the mornings and all day long. I would wake and sit on the patio listening to the birds chirp and trucks roar by in the distance, listening to dogs barking as the sun beat against the wall of bamboo in front of me, a whistle of frogs and the wail of a siren… I woke up this morning and had to get Ezzie changed and fed and cleaned and entertained, while also eating and organizing and emailing and prepping.īut during my recent visit to El Salvador, my mornings were different. These women who leave their own children and homes to take care of others’… They might even earn below the minumum salary because of room and board- the schedule is 14-days on, one-day off… Domestic workers are both male and female, but the role of the domestica, the “muchacha,” the women who clean and raise children, is so endeared. A live-in nanny, a maid, a cook, a gardener, a driver. It’s easy to love El Salvador’s cheap labor: with an minimum wage of less than $200/month, finding affordable domestic labor in El Salvador is easy. “I don’t want my son to love his country because of the maids,” she said.Īnd in all these years, that line sticks with me. He missed having a staff at home to clean dishes and take care of the details. And she told me about their recent visit back to Rome, how her husband had missed his home in El Salvador. My friend was raising her first child away from Italy, her family, her culture. The views more extreme, the contrasts more startling, the colors more vivid, the people more kind.īut that day, walking along the pounding Pacific, the warmth upon our backs as it is every single day in El Salvador, none of that seemed to matter. It’s an unbelievably beautiful country, and for many Americans for whom Costa Rica is the only Central America they know, I tell them that El Salvador is far more stunning. Let’s Not Love El Salvador for the Maids.Ībout four years ago, walking with an Italian friend along the Costa del Sol-the soft brown beaches along the Salvadoran coast-we comisserated about the challenges of being a foreigner in El Salvador. That we found a model of leadership-four women: myself, Ale Mejia, Zoila Recinos, Maite Funes-that embraces collaboration and not hierarchy.īut as I return to Chicago after three weeks in El Salvador, there’s a different story of women that we should talk about… And I want to write about the fact that in El Salvador, we let go a male Country Director to embrace a power-team of three women leaders. I’m tempted to make jokes about the other 364 days of the year.
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