Cultural differences: House-help (part 1)

Having some form of house help is a natural part of life for expats living in Togo. It is expected that if you have more money (or are perceived as having more money) than average it is your responsibility to share that wealth with others. If you do not share your wealth, you are viewed as being selfish and not a friend to the local community.

As an expat, having someone cook or clean at your house is culturally expected in Togo.

Before we left Canada there were a few things that prepared us for hiring someone. The first was talking with people (or in our case, relatives) who had been part of the service industry when first immigrating to Canada.

A close relative told us about her experience working as a cleaner to a well known public figure in her community. She worked very hard and this was noticed by her employers. They were kind to her giving bonus' at certain times of the year, occasionally giving her extra food if they had too much for themselves, not docking pay if she needed to take a day off due to a flu bug. They helped her secure a building permit when the family needed to renovate the house. Their kindness to her was never forgotten.

The second was watching a movie called 'The Help.'  Some people do still treat their house help as a separate class. Having extra hands around the home to help are such a blessing for us, we're not quite sure how people can behave so backwards.

If we were going to get someone to help us in our house I wanted to make sure they would look back on working with us as a time of good memories and remember us as fair, kind and generous employers.