Settling

"Did you sleep well last night? Was it hot?" - HM

"Yes...?" *thinks* Am I supposed to not turn the ac on? Because I do. Every night since they fixed it. There's no way I will sleep with this heat...

...

This post is long overdue, I know.

     What can I say? These past two weeks have not been easy on me. Lots of things have happened, but mainly it's been work. Day after day. Sometimes from 7am to 10pm (on the weekends mainly). The contract says we are supposed to work just 25 hours a week, but none of us do. We all work up to 40 hours. Specially during Holidays or whenever the kids make up some illness to stay at home.

     I want to make something clear, working as an Au Pair in China is no easy job. No one speaks your language except for the kids, they make you work a "flexible" schedule (pretty much means when they need you) instead of the 25hrs by contract, they don't pay your pocket money until the end of the month, you only get one day off during the weekdays and other down points. But I can't say the family has been bad to me. On the contrary, the aunt feeds me all day, she tries to communicate with me, the girls adore me and are sweethearts (as long as the parents are not here), the parents are really nice to me and no one oversteps their boundaries. But that's my case. Some people are not so lucky.

     I started writing some daily things, so I will post here what I had so far. Understand it's not that much since I have to take care of the kids, take Mandarin classes and then study for them. So here's what I got...

Tuesday, May 20

            The girls got sick today, so the host parents decided they should stay at home and rest. This pretty much meant that I had to take care of them all day long. Halfway through the day I was exhausted and the girls didn’t want to play with me anymore. I was out of games and energy. At least the parents were considerate. They got back from work, we all had dinner and then they took the girls away. It was 8pm and I was free. Any normal person would just go to bed. But the girl’s cousin invited me to play basketball, and so I did. Don’t think I am any good at it. It was just nice to finally get out of the house. After we played a bit and I watched him play with others, we went to a coffee place near the house. I was happy to discover it was also a waffle house and besides it there was a hamburger place. Now I will have a place to calm my American cravings near.

Wednesday, May 21

            The host mother told me we would go downtown to the Au Pair agency office today. It was a 45 minute drive with that awkward silence you get when you don’t know the person in the car with you that much. We got there and there was someone waiting for me. Went to the office, met another Au Pair, walked around the place, found a movie theater (yay!), headed back to the office. There I talked with the person in charge of the company. They were genuinely worried about everything that happened these past few days. They asked be about everything. From the food, to the house, the family, the place and how I was feeling. They also gave me a phone with a card to make calls. I am excited to have my own Chinese Beijing phone number. About 12:30 I headed back to the house, but didn’t get here until 17:00. Yes, I got lost in Beijing. The metro is no problem for me. It’s just the same as in Shanghai. But the bus… wow. That’s a whole other thing. They told me “get in 31 bus line” but never told me where the bus stop was. So I walked around, tried to ask, a few people helped get me lost, got in a bus that led nowhere (3 stations north to be exact), had to take the metro again. I gave up, asked a taxi and to my surprise… he didn’t know either. So there I was in the middle of I-don’t-know-where without any internet. Decided to walk until I found a mall. I was hungry and broke, so McDonalds sounded perfect. I hate fast foods, but this was as good as it got there. No one can judge me because of that. After, found a Starbucks, but the internet asked me for some things that I didn’t understand, since it was in Chinese. A nice German soul was sitting besides me and was kind enough to explain when I asked for help. I was so happy to have a Chinese phone number at that moment, because the Wi-Fi required a phone number. I messaged (in WeChat) the girl’s cousin (from now on referred as… Mike) and he sent me the location of his workplace so I could get there and then he would explain. It turns out I was “near” the place. Just a 30min walk. I decided to wait for him to get out of work, got a free coke and headed back home. Girls came back late, so I just had to play with her for 3 hours and then they went to bed.

Friday, May 24

            I woke up with a stomachache, but at the moment I thought it was just the anxiety of the day about to come. Also, I was having a nice dream (I don’t remember what it as about right now), so the alarm made my heart jump. I had my first actual Mandarin class.

(From here on I will write what I remember of this day) Class was hard and fun at the same time. Met another Au Pair, a Swedish girl who I will refer to L from now on. It was funny because the teacher said "Initials and Finitials" instead of finals. But we understood, so we just went on with it. Classes are 3 hours long with a small 15 minute break in the middle. I think the hardest part is having to actually speak in Mandarin. This language is so complicated.

Now I will start jumping around to random memories I have about my stay here.

     My first day off in Beijing (Tuesday, May 27) was actually fun. I was used to using the subway by then. It takes around 2 hours to get from the house to downtown. I went there in the morning, took some language classes to be in the same place as L and then walked around a bit. I knew there was a movie theatre near the office in some big mall. The problem was finding the mall in those streets. I did eventually find it, and just in time to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past. Good movie, nothing too memorable though; so expected. So then I walked my way to the subway, but instead of heading home I decided to stop and have a nice glass of wine at a Irish Pub that I found. Happy hour was on, so I managed to have a big glass for just 32 RMB. I stayed there for about 2 hours. No point in getting home early. The girls would just attack me and won't let me go. I got home around 9pm that night. The girls tried to play with me, but I just went directly to bed. It was nice. 

     I've met other Au Pairs too (not just L). A girl from Finland, a boy from the UK and another girl from... I don't remember. They are all super nice and friendly. I love the fact the we connect so fast over our host kid's stories. We all have something funny or some complain to share with others. Also, it's nice to compare your work, that way you know what's actually normal and what's not. The guy from the UK is really... let's go with funny. He wasn't here for a complete week before he left. Said he was expecting a really rich family that gave him everything, like the first one he had, but it wasn't like that so he decided to go back to his girlfriend. The other girl just told us "It's normal that he's leaving. Everyone leaves the first week. I will not lie to you." That was a nice day. I hate beer, but I even had a beer with them. 

Now that I remember I also had a beer with the HD and Mike.

      Yesterday we went to Summer Palace. Once again I can confirm that this is my favourite place in the world (so far). It's so amazing and so peaceful even with the hundreds of people walking around. From the actual Palace to the lake, it's just perfection. One of the girls started getting a fever while we were there, but the parents practically ignored it and went on with the scheduled boat ride. Then the host mom got a stomachache, so we had to leave faster. You know, stomachaches, way worse than any fever in the world.

     Today is Dragon Boat Festival (Holiday), which pretty much means that the whole family is free. I was expecting a lot of extra work, but to my surprise, I haven't worked that much. In the morning I helped the girls get ready for breakfast, played with them and helped with homework. That took me until noon. After that it's been easy sailing. The girls have been just having simple fun with the family and I even took a nap! I am sure I'll get some more work in the night, but for now I will enjoy this small break of air I get. (I didn't actually get more work. Just like an hour of English time with the smallest girl. She's the easiest to deal with once I've got her attention.)

     I've learned a lot in my Mandarin classes. It's nice that the class is just L and me. That way we have a personalised teacher that helps us in every step of the way. Sometimes it takes us just 1 hour to get the pronunciation right (z,s,c,q and r are the hardest), but she is just so patient wit us. She also taught me how to say "I want a beer" in Mandarin. That will be very helpful. I practice my Mandarin back home with the girls and Mike all the time. They've helped me a lot along the way. I am  so happy to learn a 3rd language.

     A great example of unlucky Au Pairs is my friend L. She got kicked out of her house today. Like "you need to go now. We don't want you here." kind of kicked out. She'll have to sleep in a hotel tonight and then see what she will do. When she asked the company what happened they just said "I have heard so many stories of you, very disappointed. You were rough to the family. No one like you. Including all other people that met you." which came out of nowhere because the other day she told me that the HM told her how much everyone liked her. See, not all of us have good stories to tell. I am glad to be able to say I like my host family so far, and I will miss the girls when I am gone.

     There goes the older girl screaming to her mom again. As I told you, they are a sweetheart when their parents are not here. Once the parents get home, they start screaming and crying to get what they want. They've maybe spoiled them just a little... 

And there goes the mom to scream at the girl in the room. Screaming does nothing if all you do is that, scream. They take no action whatsoever to correct the behaviour. Mike told me the older girl curses at her mom when they are fighting and that she just doesn't do anything. I can't deal with that, so I usually just go away when the fights start. 

I can smell food... bye!