The Sunday Mail
I inadvertently lost my driver’s licence one wintry morning and rushed back home to check whether I had not left it there to avoid trouble with the police.
To my horror, when I opened the gate the radio was playing at full blast as nearly a dozen housemaids from the hood danced to Madzibaba Nicholas Zakaria’s music.
Also dancing to the music were gardeners who occasionally whistled, clapped hands and puffed cigarettes in my sitting room.
On one corner of the dining room table were cookies, while on the other was a bucket of ice-cold beers and a whole tray of roasted sausages and princely chicken pieces in the middle.
The mood that was in my house on the day showed I could have been beaten up for delaying to leave for work. The maids and gardeners desperately wanted to use the place for a venue.
Prior to this incident, I always viewed my maid as a meek young girl who was not fully conversant with city life. This, sadly, was not the case.
She was a party animal!
Welcome to the world of housemaids which is pregnant with elements of intrigue and undeclared strange benefits.
If you fancied yourself a king with absolute authority in your household, you need to be corrected because the mantle belongs to the housemaid and gardener.
Commonly referred to as “sisi”, “musikana”, “helper” and “aunty” these people we hire to take care of our homes while we are away to work, wield a lot of power.
Most of these maids appear humble and inexperienced yet beneath that veil of honesty lies their true colours.
The moment you step out of your household, they assume total control and can help themselves to your most expensive food and wine.
Some will unlock the safe and help themselves to your hard-earned money without raising any suspicion.
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, newspapers are awash with reports of gardeners and maids who confess to building mansions in their rural homes using funds stolen from their employer. Some will buy cars, furniture and send their siblings to school using money they take away from you.
Some house helpers give criminals information about their employers and where they keep money in exchange for a cut.
Others dress inappropriately, but on purpose, to seduce the employer and wreck his marriage. They also share notes on how to go about the demonic enterprise.
Naughty ones bed the employer’s wife, daughter and relatives while feigning innocence.
“Employing someone helps lighten the burden in managing a home but it has its own challenges. The people we hire have their own prejudices and characters which often leave us crying. They will steal everything from you and funnel critical information into the ears of thieves so ensure you lose,” one guzzler told this writer.
“I would rather employ a relative than an outright stranger because there are some things a stranger can do that your relative may never do like killing you,” he continued.
But Mrs Samukheliso Phiri of Glen View holds a different view.
“I would rather do everything alone. My blood sister lost her husband because of this. Maids are a big no. They also expose children to bad things and violent programming, I just can never cope with them,” she said while shaking her head in disapproval.
The same was said by a colleague who once caught his maid posing for photographs in his wife’s expensive costumes.
“Those girls are a funny lot. A certain photographer once came to my house demanding payment for photographs from my maid who was posing for photographs while wearing my wife’s expensive clothes in our matrimonial bedroom.
Now if she has the effrontery to do all that, what else that I could not see did she do?”
Gentle reader, the issue of maids, their employers and the benefits they enjoy from each other is an emotive one. Take care not to be found on the wrong side of the bargain.
Inotambika mughetto.
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