What is a job?
Your job? Do you like your job? How far would you be willing to go for your
job? How long are your hours at your job?
Is it vitally important to others?
Good questions? Let me introduce
you to someone…..Madam “M” (for privacy sake)….let me tell you about her job
and you can compare it to yours.
She is a wife and
mother to two children (her son is 14 and her daughter is 16). She leaves home early in the morning to walk
and catch a tap-tap. A tap-tap is a
Haitian form of taxi. It is a truck with
a cap on back and many people ride in the back.
You jump in the back and then tap when you are ready to get off and pay
according to how far you went. She rides
many tap taps to get through the city and then up the mountain taking over two
hours if not more with traffic. Then she
will walk the last way on foot to get to work.
Just to begin her day. BUT,
unlike us, her workday doesn’t end a few hours later. She will work for the next 96 hours. (That’s
4 days y’all!!!)
If you haven’t
guessed by now Madam M is one of the nannies for our sweet boy! Just ONE of the nannies. Toby Oberson has two nannies that care for
him specifically and many that oversee his general care. Each nanny has a certain number of children
in their care yet care for all the children.
They work 4 days on and 3 days off and overlap so they always are there
for their children (in other words our little guy will always have one of his
primary nannies). They live in the room
with the children, sleep there and do everything right there with the
children. It is A.MA.ZING!!!
This, of course,
doesn’t count for the medical, housekeeping, cooking or administration
staff. We appreciate them so much. This month our update included pictures of
our little guy with his nannies, and told us a little bit about each of
them. We were blessed to meet these
women in March so to see them again in a picture with Oberson is
wonderful. He looks happy and healthy
and we greatly appreciate all that they do while we cannot.
(Did
anyone else grasp that reality? 4 days
in the same room with all the children! All.the.children. They sleep and eat
there too! How many times have I enjoyed
putting my kids to bed and going to my own bedroom…..and shutting the
door! Don’t judge me! I bet many of you have done it too!! These women are amazing to me!! Leaving their
own families to care for others! It
shows how much they care….and it shows how much a job means to a Haitian!)
.JPG)
Here’s
Oberson with his nannies. Haitians do not like their pictures taken so I am not
including their pictures since I do not have their permission to share
publically.
