I'm from the Rocky Mountains:  small-town Idaho.  I've lived in many random towns in Idaho, none of which had more than 50,000 people (at least not when I lived there).  I think only 2 of them even had more than 10,000 people.  If I had to pick one theme that summarizes my small-town lower-, then middle-class western upbringing (as in "west of the 'mid-west'" which is really the almost east to us westerners :-) ), it's self-reliance.  Some acquaintances of ours from North Dakota have the same general attitude, which is why I extend the assertion to anything west of Ohio:  If you can do it yourself, you should do it yourself.  I can lay tile [self-taught], so I've tiled something like 800 sq ft of floor.  I've remodeled a bathroom.  I've painted probably more 20,000 sqft of wall.  I mow my own lawn.  I've scraped probably 1000 sq ft of (non-asbestos) 'popcorn ceilings'.  I've built a bunk bed, a diaper-changing station, installed baseboard trim throughout almost all of my house.  You get the idea.  Living in Bellevue, major recipient of the financial wake of Microsoft, certainly brought a set of odd adjustments that required me to change my perspective a bit, but my core theme has really stuck.

Three years ago, I met an interesting guy from Virginia, who has lived all over the country, and even spent some time in Thailand.  He made an interesting comment, when I asked if he was painting his new house.  He said his skill wasn't painting, it was earning money by coding. So he focuses on that, and pays other people to do other things like paint his house.  This idea was completely foreign to me.  Why would he not just paint his own house?  He's single, hadn't really unpacked yet, and the idea of not painting your own house interior had honestly not occurred to me as a possibility.

Why am I talking about this, and what does this have to do with my current situation?  One word:  Ayi.

I believe a literal translation is something like "Aunty", but what an Ayi really does is a combination nanny/maid/cook.  All we really needed one for is to watch Casen while Amy is home schooling the girls, and maybe watch the kids one night a week so Amy doesn't go completely insane while we're here.  But that's really not a full time gig.  So she does other stuff.  Scratch that.  She does ALL the other stuff.  And it just feels weird.  She's a very nice woman, who apparently has an 18 year old son and husband who both live in Zhengzhou, where she's from.  And she does everything around the apartment.  She tidies constantly.  She cooks, she does laundry, she wipes Casen's nose.  All for less than minimum wage from 1983.  And from what we hear from other people. we're paying her very well.  So Amy & I aren't doing jack-squat around the apartment, now.  Amy's actually able to focus on teaching the girls, and she really doesn't need to do anything else.  And when I get home from work, Anna's cooking dinner, the kids are playing with each other, and Amy's feeling useless.  I spent the whole time until she left at 7PM just playing with kids and talking to Amy.  I washed the dishes, so Anna could shower and head home to where ever she lives, because I felt so lazy & useless.  Because if I can do something, I should. 

But I've realized something:  My strongest skill is earning money by working at Microsoft.  It has been for a long time, now.  And while I can cook, tidy, watch children, etc..., there are a whole lot of people on this side of the planet that can do all that, but can't earn much money doing anything else.  And there's another thing I can do.  I can help change that.  So I'm paying a very nice woman to wipe our 2 year old's nose.  Because if I can do something, I should.