Hiring Help

Pictures -

Brandon and his new friend Giles.

I was really looking forward to our first playdate today! After dropping Steven off at the MRT and grabbing some breakfast, Brandon and I caught a cab and headed to our friends' house.

Elizabeth is from Sydney, Australia, but she and her family haven't lived there in a while. They left Australia a few years ago and moved to London. Her husband's family was there. After leaving London, they moved to Hong Kong and now they are here in Singapore.

We had such a nice time hanging out with Elizabeth and Giles. Brandon had a great time playing, and it was beneficial for me to talk to Elizabeth. She was able to give me so much helpful information for living here!

It was also nice to see Elizabeth's home. They live in an apartment complex that's in a more residential area, and it was beautiful! Since Elizabeth and her family have been in Singapore for a while and will be here for the forseeable future, they have an apartment that they have furnished themselves. It definitely felt like a home.

Later this afternoon, Brandon and I went back to the playground at the Forum (mall). So happy that I found this place yesterday! There were lots of other children playing there, and I met another very nice woman from Australia. I think that Brandon and I will use this playground often!

Best part of the day - Brandon and I took the MRT to meet Steven for a quick dinner. It was so nice to see him!!!

After talking to several people over the last week, I have learned that most expats here with children have hired help - (maybe all expats, even those without children). I have had four people in the last two days ask me when I'm getting my hired help. At first, I wasn't exactly sure about what this was. Basically, it is really cheap here to have a live-in nanny. Children call them "aunties". The helper does the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, some/all of the childcare/babysitting, and whatever else you ask them to do. Our apartment has a small room in the back behind the kitchen. This room has a bathroom and the washer and dryer. I think that this room is intended to be where our hired help would live.

Not sure we could even get hired help if we wanted it. Most of the time the nannies want two year contracts. They need long term work.

This idea of hired help is so new to me, but it is just what people do here. Wild! I'm so use to taking care of everything myself, but it sure would be nice to have someone take care of all of the household chores for us... Speaking of which, I have some dishes to wash... :)