Maid or no maid?

"She's not a maid," says one student.

"She is." Her classmate is equally emphatic. "Just look at her clothes."

"She's not."
I'm slightly surprised at the vehemence of this discussion on a sequence in the Zimbabwean short film The Secret Circle. In it, three women mix up the books they were reading after the domestic helper (is she a domestic helper? or a relative?) lets a saucepan of water boil over and everyone's forced to put their books down for a minute. I think - or I did before this discussion started -- that this is a story about secrets and infidelity and the things we don't tell each other.
Turns out it's also about social status, and how difficult it can be to work out who exactly is who.

Those who think the third woman (who is, everyone agrees, the lowest in the female hierarchy) is a maid base their argument on this: her clothes are shabby and the "big" sister says she brought her from the rural areas. Also - and this is key - she's left to mop up the spilt water by herself. If she was a valued close relative who'd hurt herself, would she be asked to do that?
But not everyone is convinced.
Don't the two sisters - the one with cancer, the one with the cheating husband - display more concern than they would for a domestic help, asks one student.

I'm fascinated and out of my depth.
I know what I think. But this is not my culture, nor my country. I did not grow up with domestic help.

So I listen and I learn.