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A scene from the movie “The Help” (2011) directed by Tate Taylor and adapted from the novel of the same title written by Kathryn Stockett

Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
“Mu maid uyo ka, akanaka!” says my cousin Reuben as he sits down at the café. By this, he means, that maid is very beautiful.

“She reminds me of a black model. Dark, spotless skin, short hair and small earrings. Why is that girl a maid, I wonder?”

I had hardly noticed the maids looking after some children in the playground at the café. There is always some sort of activity here. Children playing, maids chasing after them or consoling them. Women having coffee and chatting away, looking beautiful and relaxed.

Professional-looking men and women in twos or threes, engaged in serious meetings and taking notes. Some people simply enjoying tea or cake.

Others smoke since there is plenty of room in this beautiful well-manicured garden for smokers to inhale some nicotine without healthy conscious customers complaining about passive smoking and how this causes cancer to the lungs.

It’s a Thursday morning. The time is 11am. I am sitting at a café in one leafy nice suburb of Harare with my cousin Reuben.

We are having our regular coffee catch-up. We do this in order to indulge and replay the lifestyle we used to enjoy when we lived in the Diaspora.

“Apart from the sheer and striking beauty of that maid, I can see a scenario here that is only a reality in Zimbabwe, and possibly in other post-colonial countries,” says Reuben.

“And what is that?” I ask.

Reuben takes a deep breath, pulls back his chair a bit and starts to give me a lecture : “Here we are, 36 years after Zimbabwe´s Independence, in a garden, in a suburb formerly meant for whites only. Here is a picture of four black maids; three are young, possibly in their late 20s. One of the maids is quite old. She is an ambuya, and could be 60 or even 70-years-old. She is chasing after a very active little white boy. She cannot keep up with this bouncy, happy energetic little Mr Mischief. And where is this boy’s mother? Over there, laughing and gossiping with her friends. She is probably a local white Zimbabwean mum or an expatriate. Where in the world would you get a peaceful colonial situation like this one?” Reuben shakes his head.

I ask him what the problem is.

There is nothing new about an African maid looking after European children. In fact, there is nothing new about a lower class that serves the middle or upper class, regardless of race.

Reuben reminds me of Terri, my African American friend who came here a couple of years ago. Terri was from North Carolina, in the US. She was working on a PhD thesis on African history and labour laws in Zimbabwe.

One day, I took Terri to a coffee shop similar to this one and, like Reuben, she commented on a young European mother who came in holding a baby in her arms. Behind her was a buxom middle aged African woman wearing a pink maid’s uniform, an apron and a matching doek or headscarf covering most of her plaited hair. The maid walked slowly behind mother and child. She carried a thick rug or quilt, a milk bottle and baby toys.

The madam and maid found a nice shade not too far away from where we were sitting. The maid spread the rug on the soft green lawn and sat on it. Then the madam kissed the baby on the forehead and handed the baby to the maid.

The young madam waved and sat at a table next to us, possibly waiting for her coffee or lunch date.

Terri said she had seen this little scenario before in a film called “The Help”.

The film is set in Mississippi in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. I had seen the movie a few months before.

“The Help” was released in 2011, directed and written by Tate Taylor and adapted from a novel called “The Help” written by Kathryn Stockett, a white American woman. In the film, a woman called Skeeter from a wealthy upper class family returns home from university and writes a book about the lives of African American housemaids working for rich white families.

During one interview, Stockett mentioned that her story was inspired by Demetrie McLorn, a black woman who used to work for the Stockett family in the 1960s. During that time, a century after the American Civil War, black women in America had few options other than to work as domestic servants for wealthy white families. White women relied very much on black maids to care and raise their children as well as cook, clean and do all the household duties required of a maid.

The narrative in the film focuses around three characters; namely Skeeter Phelan, played by Emma Stone. Then there is Aibileen Clark, a black woman, played by Viola Davis, and Minny Jackson, also a black woman, played by Octavia Spencer.

The film captures the dynamics of racial differences, social class and the struggles of black women in America during the 1960s. Though this is an interesting and entertaining film, it avoids showing any of the ugly and disturbing racism experienced by African Americans and the injustice that led to the civil rights movement.

“The Help” is a good film. But it does not present anything out of the ordinary lived experience of people in Africa or elsewhere. A European madam and an African housemaid living together separately and sharing the upbringing of a white child is a situation that has been with us since slavery and the colonial days.

Indeed, these days such a relationship is not so much about racial difference. We Africans, affluent and non-affluent alike, have also adopted the same practice of having housemaids, dressed in full regalia. Anyone with a bit of money can hire a maid. It’s the economy.

Some African maids actually prefer to work for European households because they say white people know when a maid should start work and when to finish. We Africans have a tendency to overwork the maids.

In an average African household, the maid starts work before everyone gets up, which is usually around 6am or earlier. She cleans, makes breakfast, lunches and dinners. She washes, irons and does everything she is asked to do. She works all day, stops to eat and goes to bed when everyone else has gone to bed which is usually 10pm or later. When madam is away, some maids end up providing bedroom services to the man of the house, duties which are not part of the job description.

But Terri, being an African American academic, said there was something seriously wrong with our lifestyles because we are simply replaying the colonial past without questioning the injustice hidden in such maid and madam relationships. Europeans who clean after themselves in America, Europe, Australia, Canada or elsewhere come here and become masters of a servant class overnight.

Sometimes academics and intellectuals have a tendency to see the world with different lenses.

Where is the injustice when a young African and unskilled woman finds a job as a maid and is able to make a living? Does it really matter that the young African woman is wearing a maid’s uniform and is caring for a white baby, while madam is having coffee with her friends? In fact, the maid is probably grateful to get out of the house for some fresh air and to see people moving about rather than get stuck inside a precast wall in suburban Harare.

I am sitting here now at the café, two years after the conversation with Terri, talking about the same maid and madam situation with Reuben.

“Who would think you are in Zimbabwe if you take a photo of all these Europeans and Africans enjoying coffee and cake? In the photo, you must also include African maids in uniform cuddling white babies,” says Reuben.

“Zimbabwe is a mixed bag of cultures and lifestyles. We carry so much colonial historical baggage.”

“Are you against hiring maids?” I ask Reuben.

“No. But I would not overwork a maid. I will give her time to study so she can improve herself. Why should someone be destined to be a maid and bring up other people’s children for the rest of her life?” says Reuben, with his eyes focusing on the pretty maid chasing the blonde child who is mischievously running towards us.

Reuben stands up, winks at the girl and says, “I would hire you any time.” She flirtatiously smiles and winks at him too.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.