Ryan in South Africa

So, when I was in my late 20s my stepdad sent me to South Africa to oversee his business interests there. Basically I just reported everything I saw and heard to him. I worked crazy hours because I was constantly sitting in on video conferences all over the world. I did most of my work from my house, not an office as I had better more reliable internet there and my stepdad's business interests were spread out amongst a few different companies which I would be assigned to check in on at irregular times as well as during major meetings. In other words, I keep very irregular hours staying up late so I could conference call the U.S. One day waking up early the next day for another conference call in Asia another day, catching naps in the afternoon, doing office visits at all different times during the week and day to keep them on their toes, basically it was very difficult to establish any sense of normalcy.

My stepdad was always hard to get to know and very demanding so he was always the parent/stepparent I connected least with growing up but he was also my boss now so I was always under constant pressure to prove myself to him and to all of his employees and executives who didn't think I could do the job.

South Africa was a rough adjustment at first as I had lived most of my life with my dad and stepmom in the States who lived a much simpler and modest lifestyle than my stepdad and Mom did, so I was by no means used to living the SA lifestyle. One of the weirdest things to me was that even middle-class people in SA have domestics or maids. It is almost expected of you as a way of contributing to the economy and particularly the poorer communities in SA.

I of course had no idea how to hire such a person, so I simply hired the daughter of my stepfather's lawyer's domestic. That is the daughter of the maid of the lawyer my stepdad had assigned to be my babysitter and guide in SA.

My new domestics name was Lerato. She had just matriculated or graduated High School and was looking to make some money to attend university in a year as she hadn't gotten the financial aid she needed yet. My Stepdad's lawyer had me meet her at his office and I of course had no idea what to ask her or anything, but she was a beautiful young black woman who seemed really sweet and trustworthy to me. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing her and her banging body around my house so I hired her on the spot, gave her my keys security code, and entered her fingerprints into my computer so that she could get into my house through my elaborate security system and told her I would see her in about a week when she started.