50 Gourdes vs 200 Rupees!

I am so confused and sad and perturbed by an incident that just occurred here I have to make a comment about it now! There is a young woman who helps us in the apartment with cleaning, washing. She comes here twice a day seven days a week. I just gave her 200 rupees. Do you understand what this means? At today's rate this means I just paid her $4.20 for two weeks of work. This is mind boggling! I feel like I am part of a situation that is no good! What is right? When I had the discussion of what I should pay this woman, the decision was to pay her 350 rupees a month. The reasoning was, you give her more then she will come to expect more from her next employer, which might not be possible for this person. This then unbalances the system! Well this is a rotten system, if you ask me! And I am not comparing our system in the States to the one here. I am going back to my roots here and remembering my mother negotiating 50 gourdes (that was $10 US back then!) to each of a pair of twin sisters who had come to work for us when I was a young teenager. Why this incident? Because, if I remember correctly they wanted 50.00 gourdes each and my Mother in her infinite wisdom felt that since they were twins, she should get a discount of some sort!! "2 for the price of 1"!! The poverty here can really be suffocating at times! I will continue with this topic over and over again.


This is right outside the gates of our school! People live in there! I don't get it! I am not going to get it I think in all the times I will be here. But I sure will continue on trying to understand and make sense of it.