Au pair

Our friend Carolina, a young woman from Cochabamba, will go to New Orleans to work as an au pair, or nanny, in a few weeks. She will work for an American family, taking care of their three children, for a year while she hopes to improve her English.

Carolina is nervous about the food in the U.S., and the timing of the meals. Here in Bolivia people eat a huge lunch and not much of a dinner, often just bread and tea.

She will be required to drive the children in her care to school, etc., and she is nervous about driving a car. She doesn´t know anybody who owns a car in Cochabamba, but she has taken driving lessons. I told her it will be easier in the U.S., where the streets are wider and more orderly.

I told Carolina about libraries in the U.S. I told her that she can get a library card and then borrow books and movies for free, as well as use the internet. She was amazed, and she was amazed when I told her that in the U.S. I have many boxes of books, stored with my good friends Angela and Joe. Books are expensive in Bolivia. Instead of buying books, most people buy photocopies of books. I can take my friend´s travel guide book to any photocopy shop and have it copied and bound with a spiral for about U.S. $4. University students are probably the biggest consumers of photocopied books.

I´m excited for Carolina, and if all goes well she will work a lot but also have time to work on her English. Having worked with immigrant guest workers who were horribly abused in the U.S., I can´t help but fear that Carolina´s employer may not pay her as promised, may make her work many more hours than stated in her contract, may treat her badly in in a worst case scenario may threaten her and forbid her from leaving the house. But I can´t tell Carolina any of this, and I can only hope that her host family is good to her and that she has a good experience in the U.S.