Today I finally had a relaxing day. I got to sleep in and showered. There is a beautiful newly tiled shower with a rainfall style shower faucet. When I went downstairs I saw our empleada doméstica. In El Salvador, it’s common for middle class families to have one live in domestic worker. We pay her $300 per month. Try that in the United States! The background of this system is I am sure class based, but it also helps the very poor obtain resources to feed their families in a nation where there a far fewer jobs than people. It’s interesting that in a conversation with a family member before I left they noted that its probably almost expected that we would hire someone in this role. It would be easy to dismiss this system as oppression of the poor, but I’m not sure that is accurate.
This particular person was initially hired to care for my father-in-law (which she did for about a year); he unexpectedly passed away a few weeks before we moved. She had been caring for him (bathing, dressing, helping him eat, etc.) for same cost of $300 per month. That included sleeping in the adjacent room, being available 24/7, with weekends off. Her mother would come on weekend to take over. She was devastated when he died and her tears moved my wife and her family, especially as she was the person who initially found my father-in-law unresponsive. He died at 84 in his sleep and at home with family there, but it was very sad because it was right before we moved.
I am sure there was sadness over his death coming from the empleadsa doméstica as well as his community in this rural village. I am also certain there was concern about her income and impact on her family. I told my wife that if we were going to live at the house, we could keep her employed. My wife’s nephew also lives in the house and he now shares the cost with us.
We spent some time in Ilobasco, which is a somewhat larger town about 15 minutes drive over some windy roads. There we stopped at a bank and my wife was able to open a bank account based on her national identification card, which Salvadorans call a DUI. They said I needed a tax identification number, which they call a NIT.
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