Saturday, July 19, 2025

Not much going on


My dog is bored out of her mind. Her best friend, Jax, is off at camp because his parents are in America. His other good friends, Bobby and Panza, are also back in America because their parents worked for USAID and are now unemployed.

Someone is spoiled

Kudzu used to spend pretty much all day with Jax and Jax’s mom, who worked DC hours so she could take the canines on a long walk mid-morning. It wasn’t in the long-term plan to have her there every day, but Zu and Jax just got along so well that it seemed silly to stop doing it.

Most everyone here – pretty much everyone but me – has household help, like housekeepers, nannies, cookies, driver and gardeners. Everyone with pets has someone there to watch them during the day. With Jax’s parents leaving for over a month, I figured I should find someone. As it turned out, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I mean, cost of labor is cheap here, but the skill set was a little out of the norm. What I needed was a dog-walker who could clean my house a little bit, but most people have their gardeners or drivers do the dog-walking. I have no interest in either of those, so it was a little rough. I thought I had a line on a good housekeeper who would be willing to take the dog for a long walk, but it fell through because I needed someone from around 10-2 so Zu wouldn’t be alone for more than four hours at a stretch. She doesn’t do good alone – she starts to howl.


With our USAID staff leaving, I truly didn’t foresee any issues, but man, it was hard but someone came through at the 11th hour! I’d asked earlier about her availability, but she had a full-time job lined up after her AID house was vacated (she previously worked for Panza’s parents). By a week before Jax’s parents left, I was scrambling but then the person would up learning she wouldn’t start the full-time job until August. Since I leave for R&R before that, she was available!

So for six weeks now, I’ve had a housekeeper half time. My vision had been for her to hang out with my dog mostly, and maybe clean a room a day. Well, I came home the first day and my entire house was spotless! There was a note apologizing for not making it to the patio! I was like, hello, you were going to clean the patio? I never even thought of that.

It’s been wonderful. She’s great with Kudzu and gives her two long walks during that time, and she’ll play with her, too. Let’s face it – my house does not require deep cleaning daily. I’m one person, so there’s plenty of time for her to get some puppy play time.

Our selfie attempt

But the house is also amazingly clean. She FOLDS my PJs. One day, when I went to put my pants back on the rack, I saw the white ones, which are not in the “work clothes” rotation, in a different place in the row of pants than I normally keep them. I had a split moment of thinking, “geez, why did she do this?” and realized she’d put my pants in order from light to dark. It’s so organized! She FOLDED the pants I keep on shelves and she somehow cleans my entire shower daily. It’s amazing.

I could definitely get used to it, but it’s scheduled to end next week. However, if I understood correctly – my French is pretty bad – the job she is planning to start might not be a done deal. If she is available, I’d absolutely welcome having her daily. It’s basically $5 a day for someone to clean my house and play with my dog. I’ll take it.

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