Post-Maid Era

It's that waking up at 5 o'clock routine again, not for school but this time to do house work. How did it end up this way? It's a long and complicated story, so I'll make it short and simple for you.

The maid who was working in my house had to go back to her home country, Indonesia. Her brother had passed away. So, she had to leave immediately. And since maids have stopped coming to Malaysia temporarily, we couldn't get a replacement and all the house chores were pretty much on our shoulders now.

Everyone at home have our own job to do-well, we have to. We divided it equally between us. Since I'm at home having pretty much nothing to do after I stopped working, I had to lend a helping hand to everyone and also do my share of chores. My main job is handling the clothes at home.

 At night, my job is to collect all the dirty clothes, soak them in soap water for an hour, and chuck the clothes in the washing machine. It seems very simple but the thing is, there are a lot of clothes to hand-wash at home.

When I used to tell my friends in school that my school uniforms were always hand washed, they used to say that it was possible for me to do that as the maid used to wash the clothes. Now I have the chance to prove to them that that had to be done because of necessity. So, every day (almost), I have to hand-wash my siblings' uniform and some of my mother's clothes. I usually dry the clothes in the morning and fold them once they're dried in the evening. Sometimes, I get a little lazy and do the washing early next day.

Another job of mine is to mop the house every week. At the beginning, I tried to swap mopping with dish-washing with my sister but she refused. Now, I'm pretty glad I didn't do it because there are a lot of dishes to wash after meals. Close call.

Cooking is one of the most fun things I do at home. My mum usually cooks the main dishes in the morning before going to work. I'll have to cook rice or sometimes fry some things in the afternoon for lunch. This is where I had a lot of fun. At the beginning, I even had problems cooking rice. I would forget to switch on the cooker or forget to push the "cook" button. I've learned to cook a few different dishes now after observing and helping my mum cook. I've also tried experimenting with different cooking styles.

My father has his own chores to do. He got fed up doing them after a week. So now, he has agreed to pay me RM50 a week to do his chores-washing the cars, bathrooms, and outside the house. Finally, I'm getting some money while taking a break from studying.

To be honest, I would really want the situation to stay this way. I don't want another maid and I want to do chores at home with my family. I want to learn to be independent. I'm really hoping that my parents won't get another maid that they're looking for right now.....