First, for some context, I should say that Lima is an
enormous capital that holds more than 10 million people, this is one third of
the country’s population of 32 million. This has its origin in migrations that
occurred in the 1980s from the rural areas of the country to the capital
because of national terrorism attacks and deaths of a left-wing group that
wanted to take over power through violence starting from the fields to the
city. We defeated them in 1992. But many Peruvians left their homes in rural
areas during this time to go to the capital. Another reason is that the
Peruvian Capital concentrates all of the economic and political power
institutes, and that the provinces (analogue to the US States) even though they
have resources, lack technical knowledge to use those resources to advance
their provinces, whenever there is no corruption that hampers it.
“The world population became more urban than rural in 2007. In Peru this happened almost 50 years before[1]”
“This job, traditionally undervalued and insufficiently
regulated, is almost exclusively performed by women (95,8%)
between 30 and 44 years of age (32.6%) and
14 to 24 years-old (23.6%). In average their wages are still below minimum wage
or sometimes
inexistent[2]”
 |
| The toilet is inside the shower floor. Photo: Pinterest. |
This is when the
hidden cultural values and social meanings of the homes encountered a
manifestation in the way the rooms for the maids were built or even adapted. As
property owners and architects tried to squeeze the most out of the spaces and
at the same time please a market of an expanding middle class that wanted a
living-in maid, the results were repulsive.
As I made
appointments to go see apartments with 3 bedrooms including room/bathroom for live-in service maids- for me and my children (3 year-old and 12 year-old) - I was horrified with
what I saw. One of the apartments, with an ocean view, very pretty and all said
in the ad it had a service room but after touring it with the owner I hadn’t
see it, so I ask her about the room for the maid and she takes me to the room
where the laundry machine was. Behind the door to get into that room was a
closet with sliding doors. She stands by those and slides one of the doors
announcing THAT was the bedroom!! I wasn’t sure if this was some kind of joke so,
I look at her perplexed and she said to me: they are used at not needing much
space, but if you want you can put her bed in the laundry room. I run away from
this old lady as fast as I could still feeling nauseous.
 |
| Maids in Peru are mostly people who come form the mountains or the jungle to the Coast where the capital is. Photo: Panchitas |
Another place I
visited also said in the ad that it had place for a live-in maid but I hadn’t
seen an extra room so when I asked I was taken to the kitchen, and right by one
of the kithcen walls (and I swear on my kids I will never forget this either)
the woman unhooks a sort of wood stretcher that had been tight to the wall. As
she locked it for it to resemble a bed, she tells me that in this way the
kitchen will always be clean because the maid will have to sleep there. I
remember this time I did talk my guts to this person about the humiliation and
denigration she was permitting with such placements.
Even though the
Maids Law establishes that live-in maids have to be offered a “adequate lodging”
by
the employer and the National Building Regulations[3]
prohibits rooms to be built without natural light and ventilation most of the
time in Peruvian apartments the maids’ rooms don’t have any of these and are
usually placed between the kitchen and the laundry room. The ironing of the
family’s clothing done inside their rooms with piles of clothing that are not
theirs occupying the small space. And the bathrooms many times don’t have a
sink and maids have to use the laundry’s, or the toilet is put exactly underneath
the shower to save space.
 |
| In this apartment design you can see the maid's room right by the kitchen. Its size is the size of the bathroom in the rest of the apartment; while the maid's bathroom is the size of a bed. Photo: Coherencia. |
As Valentine highlights,"architecture seems to make a physical representation of social relations in the way it organizes people in space," (p.66) and this is what has been happening in Lima. The situation has somewhat improved in the latest years, thanks to local NGOs that are defending the maids' rights, but it is still recurrent, and unfortunately just a symptom of a deeper social problem; a manifestation of how some of the worst social habits such as discrimination and racism materialize in the places/spaces we call home.
**Two things I should add: this is such a hidden practice in society, that even though it is very extended I couldn't find pictures of these rooms. Maybe because they are so private and because the maids don't want to risk their jobs. And on the side of the owners of such places, they almost never feature the maids rooms in their online ads for rent where they post many other pictures of the apartments. Unfortunately, during the time when I witnessed all of this, I think we still did not have smart phones, so I did not take pictures.
This has givien me an idea of a project in my country.
**Two things I should add: this is such a hidden practice in society, that even though it is very extended I couldn't find pictures of these rooms. Maybe because they are so private and because the maids don't want to risk their jobs. And on the side of the owners of such places, they almost never feature the maids rooms in their online ads for rent where they post many other pictures of the apartments. Unfortunately, during the time when I witnessed all of this, I think we still did not have smart phones, so I did not take pictures.
This has givien me an idea of a project in my country.
[1]
Ignacio Pacheco Díaz, Architecture, Sustainability, and Urbanism blog in Universidad
Privada del Norte. https://blogs.upn.edu.pe/arquitectura/2018/05/11/el-fenomeno-de-inmigracion-del-campo-a-la-ciudad-en-lima/
[2]
Ariana Jáuregui
and Emily Button, Academic Area and Research at IDEHPUCP, Pontificial Catholic University
of Peru.
http://idehpucp.pucp.edu.pe/notas-informativas/trabajo-domestico-una-forma-trata-personas-invisibilizada/
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