Alzira, empregada

Mozambique, like third-world countries in general, is characterized by low labour costs. As a result, everything is done manually. Here, for example, lines are painted on the roads by a guy with a big brush and a can of paint. The street sweeper is literally a lady holding a hand-made broom.

Because of the low labour costs, many middle- and upper-class residents of Mozambique can afford guards and cleaners for their homes. Alzira is the empregada (which translates simply as, "worker") that we inherited with our apartment to come and clean it once a week.

Alzira's husband died less than a month before we arrived, leaving her to tend her children by herself. She's only able to find work twice a week, so we decided to keep using her to provide her with much-needed income, though we appreciate the help cleaning as well.

Her wage is 140,000 meticais (about $5.75) per day, a raise of $1 over her previous employers. Combined with another part-time job that Alzira has, her weekly income is about $10. We also pay her an extra 10,000 meticais for her transportation to and from work.

We decided that if she was going to work for us, we'd like to visit her home and see how she lives, too. And once we were there, we knew that it was the right decision. The shy and reserved Alzira who avoids making eye contact in our apartment vanished. In her place was a broadly-smiling Alzira who was proud to show us her home and her children.

She lives in a simple house, the entire yard being perhaps 1,000 square feet. The main building is a brick structure where the "living" is done (mostly sleeping, really). There's also a kitchen at the front of the property, strung together with spare materials, and a hole in the backyard where she is slowly building a washroom with money that she saves.

I thought that it must be strange having a kitchen and a washroom outside the house, but learned that many Mozambicans think we're just as strange for wanting them inside. The difference is a function of several factors:

• Most cooking is done over open fires (of wood or charcoal), or with gas for those who can afford it. Keeping the kitchen outside reduces the pollutants in the house where the family sleeps.

• Not having to endure winter months means that "outside" and "inside" are boundaries that get blurred. Alzira's kitchen and washroom are just as close to her bedroom as are ours; the major difference is that our hallway happens to be covered by a roof, whereas hers is not.

• A family's kitchen and bathroom are functionally operational before a structure is built around them. For instance, cooking can be done in a fire pit beside the house before the walls of a kitchen are built around it. In Africa, homes are built in phases.
  

And, of course, because everything is done by hand in Mozambique, Alzira conducts these construction projects on her own. Her form of savings is very typical: when she has extra money, she buys building materials. She'll continue building once she has accumulated enough material.