Tuesday, April 3, 2007

No he didn't try and clean my sink with the toilet bowl cleaner?

The other day,I had to chase the housekeeper to clean my room before I left for town. He appeared 15minutes later with dirty mop, bucket, raid spray and an un-identified bottle in hand. I was about to tell him that I didn't have a insect problem but thought to wait and see what he planned to do. While I sat outside my room,I heard him scrubbing something in the bathroom. You see in my room the stand in shower and sink are separated from the room that has the toilet. When I stepped back into the room the housekeeper was in the shower where my sink is cleaning. I kind of nudged my head in through the door curious to see what he was scrubbing with, because a sponge nor brush seemed to be part of the cleaning tools he brought along to use. It was to my shock and amazement that I found him using the toilet bowl cleaner to clean my sink. I quickly went out and told one of the managers, that this was unacceptable. She laughed and said the he should use a brush to clean the bathrooms which I agreed with. But I could see that she wasn't as surprised as I had been by this incident. Because I had to leave I didn't get to speak with the housekeeper. When I finally caught him the next morning to tell him that what he did was wrong he stood there and told me that he used a brush to clean the sink. I was kind of thrown back by the bold faced lie and asked what brush? He said the one he brought and had placed in his pocket. I just walked away. I just couldn't handle it anymore and was sullen for the next couple of days trying to figure out whether I should move to another hotel. Until finally they agreed to buy new mop and sponge to clean my room.
Sometimes its really frustrating here because people do all sorts of crazy and unimaginable things and when you try and correct them, they act like they suddenly don't understand you. But they can convert USD's to Cedies in their heads before you can. I'm learning a lot of patience here. Honestly, I don't have much of a choice.
It rained on Sunday. While I was thankful for the rain and cooler temperatures, it was a moment of short lived happiness because the following day I saw that homes had lost roofs, electrical polls were throwing across the road, and entire homes were destroyed, flipped upside down and broken. I was surprised by how much damage 30 minutes of rain could cause.
Being here is really humbling, whenever, I find myself getting ready to get an attitude or lose my cool, something about life here makes me realize that what I'm fussing about really isn't that serious. For instance,I was so annoyed with the housekeeper, but he was one of the villagers who lost his roof and had to stay at the hotel Sunday and Monday night. I was kind of embarrassed as he explained that he was literally trying to keep the roof from flying away with his bare hands when he realized that he was being pulled by the strong winds and lost his grip. Two days later there are still several homes without roofs which means that there will be even more people sleeping on the ground if they don't have relatives near by with which they could stay. I can't believe something so simple as rain could cause so much devastation.

3 comments:

Ayesha Attah said...

Hi Barb! I'm glad you sent me your blog. I always like to read about Ghana from an outsider's perspective and maybe when I go back, for the first few weeks I'll see it with those eyes as well. But eventually you get sucked into the way of life, and the craziness, laziness becomes just the way things are. I'm glad you're slowly adjusting, but mosquito bites are never fun...

Unknown said...

Hey Barberelli:
I just loved reading your posts.. lol... you can take the gal out of NY but you can't take NY out of the gal... i think that housekeeper will think twice when he cleans your sink.. lol... be safe... love ya sis.

Bee said...

Very Interesting persepective. How disgusting though that he or she decided to multitask with the cleaning brush. Yuck, yuck, yuckie yuck. I think once you get over the initial shock of the whole experience the adjustment is pretty smooth sailing.