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. The cost per month to have this service is the wage, which costs only slightly more than we paid for cell phone service for four people in the U.S., plus room and board. The background of this system is I am sure class based, but it also helps the very poor obtain resources to feed their families. 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.). 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 in his sleep and at home with family there, but it was very sad especially 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.
We spent some time in Ilobasco. 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 in order to open an account, which they call a NIT.