This true Life event was written in 2011.
Growing up in rural Missoura the only maids that I knew about were dressed in black and white uniforms at least on TV and either worked at the fancy homes that the banker or the lawyer owned.
How life changes and little did I know.
Nuch our maid here in Bangkok has now been with us for over 10 years. She is about 35 and has two kids. My wife and I both work full-time at an international school. Our life style is considered average for expats here in Thailand.
Nuch at D&G Resort in 2007
To keep things in perspective keep in mind that Nuch is from one of the poorest sections of Thailand and completed six years of school. Not that unusual as Dee’s mother who is celebrating her 72nd birthday cannot read nor write as she only went to four years of schooling.
We pay our maid rather reasonable wages way above the Thai minimum wages. She works four hours Monday through Friday and six hours on Saturday. Throw in the numerous Thai national holidays and other family excuses, it ain’t a bad gig.
Throughout the ups and downs of the years, I was not expecting what happened when I returned home recently. Nuch’s husband had died. Why? He was a construction worker and had been electrocuted on the job site. As Paul Harvey would say here is the rest of the story.
Many construction workers are shuttled from site to site and live in various temporary homes. In many homes there is a display of Buddha items on a shelf. This particular time Nuch’s husband said they were bad and had them thrown out. Everyone kept telling him not to do this as it would disturb the previous spirits.
Anyway, in a drunken state he trashed everything on the shelf. He died the following day.
Some events in life cannot be explained…
Update May 2018. Nuch has remarried and had another child. Currently, she is looking for work as she was recently fired from another maid job. Apparently, her new husband had been going with her to work and stealing.