Russia is dusty.
In fact, our recent American visitors kept commenting on how much the dust swirls around everything---everywhere. Back home I lived next to a grain elevator. I had to dust my house every couple of weeks to keep up but it wasn’t unmanageable. Here it is unmanageable. Which leads to my dilemma. I home-school my four children and spend 4-5 hours a day in the kitchen preparing our meals. Each load of laundry, in the European washing machine, takes about 3.5 hours to complete. Needless to say, I don’t have any spare time to clean the house---or maybe I don’t want to use the little spare time I have to clean the house. That’s more honest.
Most people in our international community are well off. They drive Bentleys, send their kids to 16K per year International schools, have housekeepers, nannies, and buy virtually whatever they want. We are the oddballs. We budget for food, drive a beater van, and home-school to save money. It’s not as glamorous as it seems.
So my husband encouraged me to get someone to clean the house every so often. Most of the housekeepers/nannies are Filipino, but every time I called one of them, they didn’t come through. So my friend introduced me to a Russian woman named Svetlana. (I have changed the name for the security of the real person, but her name is as traditionally Russian as Svetlana.) She comes to clean about every 10 days and is wonderful with my children and the dust.
She arrives at 9:30 in the morning and stays until 5:10pm. She takes her time wiping the nooks and crannies that I don’t bother to notice and last week she folded 4 loads of laundry. She’s wonderful! On the days she comes, I’ve found I am a nicer person to----well, everyone. At about 1:30pm, she wants lunch so I serve her black bread, mayonnaise, meat, and cheese on an open face sandwich. Sometimes she wants tea.
One time I walked into my kitchen where she was mopping and she was wearing my “house shoes”. These are brown Dr. Scholls clogs that I only wear on the cold tile floors. I looked at her with a wondering face and she said, “I wear your shoes.”
I said, “I can see that.”
She said, “they’re nice. Very comfortable.”
I said, “I know.” And she went back to her mopping.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a complete stranger try on my shoes and then continue to wear them, but she did. She has worn them every week since. I quit wearing them after that first day, except one time when I broke a glass and I was desperate to protect my feet.
Once I was trying to explain to her that I had a friend who would like to call her about services and she didn’t understand at all. Her response “Akreel and Seleet.”
I said, “the cleaners?”
She said, “yes, please buy Akreel and Seleet.”
I said, “Okay, I will, but can my friend call you.”
She says, “Your English is confusing.”
I smiled and said, “okay.”
This past Monday, I was doubled over in pain. Initially I thought it was back pain, but as the day went on, I realized it was a re-visitation of kidney stones. Lucky me. So by Tuesday when Svetlana came, I was feeling better but still a little slow moving. It was 55 degrees outside and so I was in capris and bare feet. When she understood my pain, she rubbed my back and then pointed to my bare feet and said, “no---tsk, tsk, tsk, bad for body.”
I smiled and put some socks on to subdue her. Ironically, I felt better by the end of the day. She, of course, attributed my success to the socks. Not to the mega doses of Motrin and Vicodin I had taken. She will be here again soon. I am thankful for her help. Next time I’m thinking about walking outside with wet hair in a swimsuit just to see what happens.
