Kasambahay Bootcamp

We have to admit the benefits of living in the Philippines is the availability of domestic help within our capacity to employ and add as a member of our household. Hiring a household helper will change the family's lifestyle for better or for worse, so it would be beneficial to consider some important things.

This post will attempt to answer the question: Any tips on hiring, training and hopefully keeping a house helper?

On hiring:
1. Employment agencies - they have the advantage of trained helpers and midwives (as "yayas" for infants).
2. By recommendation - from friends, relatives, employees, co-workers.

(It would be good to ask for a barangay clearance, police clearance & valid ID; cellphone numbers of relations in the helper's hometown).

Meeting the kasambahay (the interview):
1. Things to look out for:

• a. Respectful bearing and language, eye contact.
  
• b. Hygiene (check out for body odor, bad breath)
• c. Manner of dressing (tacky, sexy? neat? respectable?)
• d. Intelligence (Street smarts and common sense)

2. Things to ask about:

• a. Name, age, address, occupation of parents, siblings, cellphone number
• b. Educational attainment
• c. Health problems (asthmatic? allergic? arthritic?)
• d. Ambition in life
• e. Basic household skills
• f. Expected salary (optional*)
• g. Relatives and friends in the city
• h. Opinions on children, housework, etc.

Give yourself a day or two until you decide whether the applicant in question suits your needs (based on the first impression and the interview). This will also test the applicant's decisiveness in having you as her employer.

Should you decide not to hire the applicant, tell her so politely.

When you and the applicant have agreed with the employment, take a week's off to personally train the helper. This will benefit you greatly as it will also be the time to test the new employee's trustworthiness and thoroughness with work. This time can be used to show the new employee the household's routine and needs. A few things first:

Before training:

• a. Inform the new employee how much her salary will be and when payday will be.
• b. Indicate the benefits of employment (include the comparison between renting a room and the free room that comes with employment, free meals and snacks).
• c. Indicate the boundaries of the benefits (what do free meals include? coffee, tea, milk? or none? Be specific with the boundaries (Is the detergent she will use for your laundry be the same she will use for hers? Who will buy her toiletries?).
• d. Inform her of her rest day and what time and day she is expected to return.
• e. You can have a trial period of one month and inform her if she decides this.
• f. Inform her that should either of party decide to terminate the employment, all her bags will be checked before she leaves.
• g. Tell her of the boundaries you feels strongly about. ("I don't want to smell my perfume on you.", "Never take things that are not yours.", "Use your own slippers, comb, towel, etc.", "Take care while washing and ironing the clothes.")

Training:
On the first day:
1. Orient the new staff on the daily routine, integrating a house tour and what you want done everyday. Make sure to give her enough lunch and rest in the middle of the day.
2. Write down her schedule (daily, weekly).

Within the week:
1. Check if she was able to follow through the schedule you gave on the first day.
2. Always put your valuables in a safe place. Tell your family to do the same. Always check pockets before putting it in the laundry.
3. If you should test the trustworthiness of a household helper, make sure you willing to risk firing her and losing the "test" item. Go back to square one.

How to keep a good helper:

1. Treat her well. There is a Kasambahay Bill Situationer which will help to protect your own and the employees interests.
2. Appreciate her good efforts through kind and sincere words and occasional tokens of gratitude.
3. Give her a raise.
4. Give her used items (clothing, etc.)
5. Feed her well (but remember your personal boundaries).
6. Give her enough rest and respect her personal space.
7. Nobody's perfect: she may be a good cook but a lousy cleaner or vice versa. If she's worth keeping (maybe because she's trustworthy), you might be willing to overlook her imperfection based on your own need.
8. Treat her the way you would want to be treated if you sought domestic employment in a king's palace (you are the queen of your home after all).
9. Be honest with her. Pay her on time and give her the rest day you agreed upon.
10. Take care of her health. (Her physical well-being is her investment. She will not be able to serve you well.)
11. Add your own.

(image from wikimedia commons)

Review: Lipstick Jungle

I watched the whole first season of Lipstick Jungle on DVD this afternoon. My interest was a residue from my '80's movie craze over the summer.

Andrew McCarthy, Pretty in Pink dreamy prom date turned Jungle bazzilionaire, and the dewy Emmeline in Blue Lagoon turned power executive/wonder mommy in Lipstick Jungle shone on the Jungle of New York.

I'm not a big fan of western T.V. series. Grey's Anatomy turned me off with the multiple sex partners carousel. And I never got into the Sex & the City hype (I'm more into the oddities).

I Googled Lipstick Jungle because of my mad crush on Blane and I fell in love with the stills on Andrew McCarthy and Lindsay Price.

There's a lot of bad reviews on Lipstick Jungle, which is understandable since Sex & the City is so big, it must've made LJ look like an ugly step sister to Sex fans.

Lipstick Jungle, based on the novel by Candace Bushnell (same author of Sex & the City) follows the lives, loves and lusts of three glamorous, high-powered bff's in New York. Portrayed by Brooke Shields, Kim Raver and Lindsay Price, the three stunning women were perfect for the roles. The seven-episode first season attempts and somehow succeeds in giving humanity to the beautiful socialites struggling to find their rightful gilded thrones in the Big Apple.

I actually enjoyed the dramedy, and for a lazy Sunday afternoon it wasn't a bad way to pass the time.

I liked the soundtrack too. Lots of chill, trance and indie-sounding tracks; very modern.

I'm looking forward to reading the book version. A big, fat 500+ page narrative on the soirees of the glossy lipped power women and their adventures. I'm getting that next week.

Meanwhile, over lunchbreak this week, I'll finish season two and find out why the poor show was canceled.

"Out with the old and in with the ew? That is so mean!" Victory Ford, fashion designer, Lipstick Jungle

Feel Good Movies

When boredom and ennui strike and not all resources have been used, there's the DVD player. Here are some feel-good movies I love:

1. Titanic - True love saves
2. Never Been Kissed - Love in a flashback
3. Ever After - Love in a fairytale
4. The Goonies - Love of adventure
5. Love Affair - Love can wait
6. I Wanna Hold Your Hand - Love the Beatles and the laughter
7. A Walk to Remember - Love changes everything
8. The Last Holiday - Love wished for, love unexpected (expectantly)
9. The Secret - Love for all things good
10.Music and Lyrics - Love musicians

Hotel Review: Makati Shangri-La

Shangri-La is a mythical place authored by James Hilton. It is located up in the Himalayas where one is eternally happy and ever so young.

While Shangri-La has been synonymous to utopia since The Lost Horizon's inception, in the business world, Shangri-La is well known as the world-class business address for topnotch fieldwork. Indeed, the Shangri-La I visited with my mom and son last weekend was nirvana, albeit a consumerist one.

The monumental landmark is conveniently located in the country's business capital, Makati. Small wonder it was a place where well heeled businessmen and socialites and people of all colors and races converge. There is an endless stream of pleasant greetings from the charming and dapper bellhops and guest service ladies, nodding becomingly to each tourist, wedding guest and all and sundry. The marbled floors of the lobby and chandeliered high ceilings are palatial. And if that's not enough for the senses, the scent of Eternity for Women by Calvin Klein wafts through the pleasantly airconditioned hall.

Our room was overlooking the adjacent Glorietta area, with a panoramic view of HardRock Cafe, Saisaki and Dad's. The bathroom was marbled with a nice bathtub and a separate shower room. There was a nice complimentary fruit bowl of banana, mandarin citrus and Fuji apples.

That night, before dinner, my son frolicked in the fourth floor pool area where he was got first-class treatment, Zack and Cody would be jealous! "I wish we lived here, Ma," my son would muse repeatedly.

The next day, I experienced the world-class breakfast buffet. Upon entering Circles, their breakfast hall, one is greeted with the assortment of fruit juices (some laced with alcohol [early in the morning!]), Japanese food, bagels, croissants, puddings and waffles. And then a long row of casseroles with every mouthwatering, culinary delight. Across the buffet counter was a another table filled with chilled milk, fruits and cereals. It was a feat to choose from the variety. Eventually, I settled for myself old-fashioned ham, steamed mushrooms, eggs Benedict and a waffle. I took a glass of Carrot and Orange juice and within minutes, I felt a lovely buzz between my ears and decided that it's definitely laced with vodka.

Relaxed and pleased from my wonderful breakfast, I milled around the hotel and struck a conversation with a lovely lady New Yorker on a business trip. The company she's with is into outsourcing, a very lucrative business enterprise and employment opportunity in the Philippines. I also talked with some locals, asking them what their affair was in the hotel. They had a call center office event in the posh venue. (They're the guys in front of the facade).

I was intoxicated with the consumerist sensuality of the hotel, the scent, the sights, and the gastronomical delights such that when a nice-looking Indian guy who happened to be a Service Manager greeted me, I gushed to him "You're hotel is beautiful!" I was bowled over when he said with a twinkle in his eye, "Not as beautiful as you."

I took a lot of pictures in hopes of encapsulating the materialistic idyll I was in. After interviewing two elegant and charming Guest Service ladies (a graduate from De La Salle College of St. Benilde, the other one from "Iceland"), I asked them to pose in front of an immense seascape of a gorgeous sunset. "Shangri-La smile!" I cheered while clicking. Just then, a tall white man in a sharp business suit, looked solicitously amused, "Would you like to join them?" he asked. He was the General Manager (with the bellhop in the photo). "You're hotel is beautiful," I seemed to say this a lot. He was delighted, "Not as beautiful as you!" (That seems to be a standard form of flattery. After all, it is Shangri-La).

On our ride to the airport for our flight home, my mother said to my eleven year old son, "There's no place like home, is there? Home sweet home."

"There's a place like home, grandma," my son said.

We both looked wonderingly at my son. Without missing a beat he said with much conviction and nostalgia "Shangri-La feels like home."

I certainly know what he means.

Hot Shot/ Basketball of Fire 2008 - Review

Jerry Yan will be my hottie forever (according to my fan-heart)... And wow! Has the packaging of his stardom improved by meteorical measures since Meteor Garden (no pun intended). For one, his fashion sense has greatly, astoundingly improved...If in Meteor Garden I, he was up against his tacky clothes and reliant on his amazing looks, in Hot Shot, Jerry has become a real star!

But since this is not mainly about Jerry, let me get to the "review" part of this post.

All in all, I highly enjoyed the series. Surprisingly, it got lower ratings compared to high ones of Fated to Love You. Perhaps it's because Hot Shot wasn't all that emotionally sensational - again, compared to Fated to Love You. In fact, Hot Shot is a very easygoing watch, with its fair share of intriguing twists and turns and spectacular scene sequences (especially when they play basket!). I also love how they interspersed the comedy and drama of it.

But then again, my son and I were looking out for an important sequence at the end, which would have tied up the whole series and make the title truly worth being called "Hot Shot". The sequence we had in mind wasn't there.

Other than that, I should say it was worth watching. It was not sensational, but I must say it was really good!

Image from Crunchyroll.

Proving a Bal-Bal

Tomorrow is the first Friday of the month. It would be a good day to go to the mananambal, or faith healer to inquire about a person's otherworldly status; to ask whether he is dating true, blooded human being... or a bal-bal.

According to Wikipedia, the Bal-Bal is a mythological monster that steals corpses whether it is in a funeral or grave and feeds on them.

My friend is seeing a lovely girl from a nearby town that is known to be infested with bal-bals. Contrary to the Wikipedia definition, the term bal-bal in our region describes an otherworldy creature/being with a human appearance and demeanor but has powers one of which is the ability to fly (and yes, think bat wings). Bal-bals are attracted to the scent of the dead or pregnant mothers. More frightening, their condition is contagious. Bal-bals can contaminate persons who offend them by patting the latter in any part of the body. Other ways of contamination is murmuring spells on a person and blowing a breath on a person's skin. Eating food prepared in bal-bal's homes can also infect a normal human being.

When my friend told his colleagues that he was seeing this girl, his co-workers burst his romantic bubble by telling him the long standing rumor that this girl was a bal-bal. Her parents, though well off and highly educated, are reputedly bal-bals as well. My friend and I then decided to interview my hilot, or masseuse on what she knows of bal-bals.

I presumed that my hilot, a devout Catholic, didn't believe in such backwards superstitions. But she did know some faith healers and she traveled in such circles so my friend and I took our chance on her.

Apparently, she did believe in the existence of bal-bals and taught us how to detect one.

Faith healer friends of my hilot would always gift her with lana, or oil from herbs that has been prayed over. This was said to protect her from bad spirits and yes, bal-bals. She always brought lana in a small flask, making sure that the outer surface of the bottle was dry. One night, she and her children were in an area in our city thought to be ridden with bal-bals. The hairs on her neck were standing as she and her children took a row boat or bangka that would bring her to the other side of the river. Her flask of lana was "boiling", and warm oil spewed from the bottle. A bal-bal was in the vicinity.

According to my hilot, when the bal-bal would detect the odor of the lana, the flask of oil would sweat while the oil would boil inside . In turn, the bal-bal would feel uneasy and uncomfortably warm, and even avoid the person carrying the native, blessed concoction.

"I thought you didn't believe in these things," I told her.

"Oh, but I do!" she said, "I'll tell you more."

One night, her son came home from basketball practice. He complained that his shoulder blades felt weird, like something wanted to come out of his body, and that he felt like flying. He climbed the walls of their home. She asked her son what happened. "Ma, an old man came to me tonight and asked me hat time it is. I answered him and then he patted me in the back and left." Frantic, my hilot went to their neighbor, a faith healer, knowing her son had been contaminated. The spell had to be undone. The son was ordered by the faith healer to take in a concoction of lana. Something was lodged at his throat. He threw it up and out came what looked like a bird's embryo with wings. He vomited some more and out came fine feathers, like a lovebird's. He puked some more and out came another bird that had soft bones, like a balot (a Filipino delicacy). "He's going to be weak in the next 24 hours," the faith healer said. "Don't let him eat anything that is cooked with blood for a year. No dinuguan (pork blood stew), chicken and pork entrails for a year. And always let your children bring lana."

Bal-bals are also known to keep on asking the time, though it is obvious that you belong to the same time zone. Their purpose is to know that it is the hour of contamination.

By the time we had finished our interview with my hilot, my friend and I were in a stupor. We couldn't believe that we were actually taking this seriously.

His date who was a suspected bal-bal was a prospect for a relationship. She seemed nice. She looked nice. She even has a nice job! Besides, the first decade of the millennium is almost over and here we are regressing to myths on the kapres, diwatas and bal-bals!

I feel bad for the lady/bal-bal suspect. I feel bad for my friend too. My friend has it in him to find out the truth. Off he goes with the lana. Seriously. But I did tell him I wish he'd call the whole thing off - for his safety's sake.

"Can you believe this?" he asked quietly, but incredulously.
"Can't say I do, can't say I don't," I said.

God bless us ALL.

This is not fiction.

*Comic relief: This is so in the tune of the Twilight Saga. But I swear, it's not funny at all. Ironically it makes me laugh.

Picture from http://mokong2007.blogspot.com/2008/11/halo-halloween-3.html

Book Love: The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray

Two nights ago, I finished the award-winning Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray.

The trilogy follows the phantasmagorical adventures of Gemma Doyle, an English girl of sixteen who embarks on a journey to the Motherland from the British colony of India to learn to live like a proper English lady.

Replete with drama, peril, romance and magic, The Gemma Doyle Trilogy will sweep you off your feet in three delicious books, starting with A Great and Terrible Beauty, continued by Rebel Angels and is concluded by a big, fat, satisfying ending in The Sweet Far Thing.

The themes of authority, family, bonds of friendship, young love and the ambiguity of good and evil are explored in the sweeping chronicle of Gemma's exploits.

Makes for a good, lazy weekend(s) reading! Don't forget the biscuits and the tea!