True Confessions of a Romanian Chambermaid
To protect the innocent, the real names of the chambermaid and the donkey have been changed.
The outskirts of Brussels
The chambermaid comes in to make the room while I am still working on my computer. She sees me on my Powerbook and asks if she can disturb me. She proceeds to ask me about wireless access and what she needs to get it. It turns out she is asking because what she’d really like to do is steal her neighbour’s connection so she can save some money. When I told her that her neighbour would have to be a complete fool to have his WiFi unsecured, she smiled and mumbled something about at least having a try.
So I asked her where she came from because I had overheard her speak in both English and French to the front-desk. She says Romania. She’d been in Brussels for a year and was thinking that she would stay long enough to save so she could open a small business back in Romania. And then it all flooded in. She was 22 and had been with a guy since she was 16 but she had to break up with him when he sided with his mother in an argument. She was a one-man woman. That’s what one did in Romania – they were a bit old-fashioned but still. But now she was alone, it meant that she had to pay the rent by herself, which took up 50% of her pay. And she had to pay for new furniture and things like that.
“So how many days do you work here?”
“Seven. I am here every day of the week from 7 in the morning.”
“Wow! But is it easy to clean the rooms?”
“Your room is easy. But Room 7, you know, 2 men, in one bed – ah! I cannot tell you what I have to clean up.”
“You mean the towels?”
“The towels, the sheets and everything.”
“No! Really?”
“I complain to the boss. I tell him, “I can’t clean up that stuff – their “caca”. Tell them to wear condoms.” “I can’t go and tell them to wear condoms!” And, you know, Always?”
“No, I’m not sure. Oh, you mean tampons?”
“No, not tampons, not what you put inside – bigger, what you wear outside.”
“Oh, sanitary pads. The men wore sanitary pads?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to tell you what they looked like – and big, terrible smell. Why they wear them?”
“I think I know why they wear sanitary pads – I can explain it if you need.”
“And then in the morning, they are all so “Bonjour!” and I know what they have been doing.”
“Ah, so that’s why you were irritated with him when he wanted to help me make coffee the first day.”
“And your friend, the one in Room 6, he had a big box of virility pills.”
“You mean Viagra?”
“Something similar. My friend—she was helping one morning—called me and said that he had a big box!”
“Well, I know it’s his 50th birthday today and he flew back to Boston early to spend his birthday with his partner so maybe he needed to be well prepared.”
“I can’t understand woman with woman, man with man. In Romania, a woman goes with a man.”
“But, in Romania, you have donkeys for that.”
“Well, I not come from the countryside, I come from the city,” she says sheepishly.
“Maybe they also have chickens…but it must be hard holding still a small animal with feathers and it must be so hard…you know, to…”
“No, you hold the wings and you (she does the actions) and you know those who look after the sheeps, they do things with the sheeps.”
“Yes, on the farms and in the mountains, but not in the cities, where you come from.”
“And Asians, they lose lots fo hair.”
“Sorry, what do they lose?”
“Hair. Lots of hair. Every morning next to the bed, I had to pick up lots of hair.”
“Really? Are you sure it wasn’t a wig? Or maybe they were shaving their heads or maybe other parts of their bodies.”
“No, it wasn’t curly, you know. Like hair from their head. Lots of it.”
“So what are you going to say about me when I go?”
“Nothing, of course. You are normal, simpatico.”
“Listen, I have to go and check out more of strange Brussels. Help yourself to these chocolates that I got as a gift yesterday. I can’t eat them all.”
“No, thank you, I am phoohtt (fat) already.”
And so ends the morning chat with the chambermaid, who doesn’t understand the concept of discretion.
Posted: August 23rd, 2008 under Lexis News.
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