Fast Changing Gas Attendent

My husband asked me to stop and get gas tonight. I had an appointment so I stopped on my way home. Most gas stations have attendants that pump the gas for you. It's a security measure so it requires prepay and no drive off.

On my way out of the house my husband hands me what I thought was five L100 bills. L100 = about US $5 and the capital letter L = lempira, the Honduran currency. He said "put gas in the car". I didn't count it at the time, but we had discussed taking L500 previously. Once at the gas station I hand the (5) bills to the attendant and he walks away. He punches some buttons on the gas pump or does something I couldn't see and then turns back to me and spreads the bills out in his hands and says (in Spanish) "only four hundred". I say, "no, five hundred". As he stood there holding out the four wrinkly bills for me to see as if to say, "no lady, see, you only gave L400". I started second guessing myself and wondering if I miscounted & misplaced a L100 bill or maybe my husband only gave me L400 not L500 as I thought. I wasn't sure and I didn't know how to argue the point.

There I was just screaming to be taken advantage of. I had just experienced recently that the customer is not someone thought highly of or respected. Who was going to believe me? I felt stuck. So yes, this white girl was taken advantage of, fast changed and lost a quick $5 bucks. You might think $5 dollars is not a lot to lose, but we live on Honduran wages, not US wages. Many people live on that much a day or less. It's hard to compare, but if I lose L100 here it is like losing US $20 dollars in the states.

Once I got home and told my husband, of course he said I should have called him, but in my confused mind it didn't occur to me. He confirmed that he did give me L500 and after a thorough search of my purse, my husband being so protective, wanted us to drive back to the gas station and try and set some things straight, but it was getting late and it was just not worth the time, gas, hassle and headache. I told my husband that we should just leave it up to God if he wants to teach that guy a lesson. I know I learned one. Be very, very careful and count out your money to the gas pump attendants and make sure you both agree what amount is being exchanged. Video tape it if possible.

Would you go back to the gas station and confront him?

Help Wanted - Experienced Nanny & Maid

Yes, you read it right. We are in desperate need of another nanny/maid. This sounds a little snobbish to my American ears because it's just not common for the middle class in America in which I grew up to have either of these. But, the middle class in Honduras - you can bet a lot of them have maids. Now, nanny is another thing. It is more like we need a babysitter. I work for about 4 hours in the morning. I leave shortly after 8am and get home by noon most days. We hired a 15 year old girl who has done work for us in the past to come into our home and watch our son as well as do light cleaning. Nothing major. Most of her time here was just keeping an eye on our son, which meant they probably watched a lot of cartoons. They did go play outside and go for walks once in a while, but she would often play with him while they watched TV. I figured as long as my son wasn't being neglected and attended to as needed, we could work with that. Papa is often in and out of the house anyway, so could keep tabs on things too.

She started almost 4 weeks ago now and she seemed to be excited about the job. We paid her really well, in comparison to what other maids are paid. She was required to work about 4 hours a day and like I said, it really was pretty light work. We also fed her breakfast and lunch. She showed up on time and seemed to respect our property. I never noticed food missing or things out of place like she may have rummaged through anything. The one thing that I did notice was that she often cleaned up Sister's room without us asking her to. Not that sister has anything extremely valuable, but I moved some of her jewelry that she had gotten as gifts out of the room and figured there wasn't much else that was worth stealing and if it was...well, it probably wouldn't be missed all that much anyway. Sister is 10. Our now ex maid just turned 15. We even got her a cake and ice-cream and had a mini party for her after lunch on her birthday. Sister doesn't have anything extravagant as far as furnishings or things in her room, but the things she does have are girl type things and compared to what our maid grew up with, I can imagine she may have dreamed of having her own room like Sister's, with stuffed animals and a stereo to play music and a pretty girlish bed set. So I let it go. Like I said, I never saw anything go missing.

Today we found out that she had been using the house phone against our instructions. Land lines are slightly different here. You pay per phone call and it costs more to call a cell phone. Land line to land line is cheaper. So we use our cell phones to call cell phones and our land line to call other land lines. We gave her emergency numbers and told her to call only in an emergency. Turns out that she used up all our credit on the land line. The tip off was when Papa was trying to use the house phone and the calls wouldn't go through. Confused, since he had just paid the phone bill, he called the phone company and requested the numbers called and proceeded to call the numbers he was told we dialed from our phone. Yep, they all knew our maid. As sick as this sounds, she spent two weeks pay in just over a week talking on the phone.

Papa questioned her asking if she was using the phone. She insisted that she hadn't. Then Papa basically reprimanded her, told her that he knew that was not true. Papa said she kept her head down and was clearly ashamed. Papa told her that we won't be needing her services and she forfeits this weeks pay (she was just paid last Friday).

I know I should say "no excuses". But in a way my heart goes out to her. I honestly think she didn't know that the phone use could have been tracked. She was being a dumb teenager who wanted to talk on the phone. If she grew up without a phone, how could she know. We just told her not to use the phone. I don't think Papa explained why she wasn't supposed to use the phone.

I felt like she was learning from us and also feeling a little more comfortable learning how we like to have things done. Not that we are real picky. She was just learning how to do things without being asked. Now we are basically stuck. We need someone starting Monday to look after Brother and we don't have a clue who or where to turn to.

Why do I have this wave of guilt for being tough and sending her on her way for this? I hear so many other horror stories about maids and ours was basically doing a pretty good job. Do you think this was too harsh and she deserved a second chance? Or did we do the right thing?

A Hard Lesson Learned

Sometimes bad news can really suck the good mood out of you like a punch in the stomach. As much as you wish you could get the happy mood back...it's gone for the day.

Today started out as a great Saturday. Papa has had a good business week and knowing we made it through another month paying our bills with maybe a little extra feels good. The bad news came sometime around lunch when Papa got a call from Rolando, a client of his who is also a friend. Brother Sprout loves it when he comes over and spends a lot of time hanging out with the boys talking business. I could tell the minute Papa got on the phone that something was not right. When he hung up, I asked what was up. Rolando was robbed at gunpoint outside a small store. Rule number one - don't keep all your money in one place. A lesson learned too late for Rolando.

Rolando came over to talk and him and Papa ran an errand together. Papa is really good at putting perspective on things and I'm sure he needed a little encouragement after that kind of blow. I can't talk to Rolando much due to the language barrier, but he seems like a good guy. Him and his wife just had a baby a few weeks ago. His wife needed a c-section and it got infected and needed a second surgery to treat the infection. He lost a few days of work and I'm sure they have some medical expenses with all that. Now this.

Anyway, I know the good mood will come back, but today I feel sad that this happened to a friend and there is nothing that can be done for him.