the cleaning philosopher

I spoke to our new cleaning lady yesterday. First of all, she was stunned I actually spoke to her 'cause generally, as stupid as this sounds, nurses don't converse with cleaning people, unless it's to tell them to clean something faster. Anyway, I digress. So, she was cleaning my patient's room and I said, "hello, I'm Laura, what's your name?" "Boujana (?sp)." " where are you from?" "Poland." "thank you for cleaning my patient's room." "it's my job." "well, I really couldn't do my job if you weren't here, so thank you." Our conversation continued beyond the necessity of the housekeeper. Boujana has been in Canada for over 10 years and feels very embarrassed about her english. I asked her what she used to do in Poland. She looked at me sheepishly and I told her it was fine if she didn't want to tell me, but I could tell she kind of wanted to. So I waited. She said, "I was a Philosophy professor at a university." Now she cleans floors and beds and empties gigantic garbage cans. She said she just doesn't look back because it's better here and her children are happy and they are all in school. She has four children. The oldest is 21 and the youngest is 12. She said they are safe and they will get jobs. She smiled at me and said, "thank you for asking me my name. thank you for asking me questions." I said, "you're welcome and thank you."