I woke up with yet another case of pink eye. Don't know what it is with me
and travelling and eye infections, but I always seem to get em (and no, I
haven't been in contact with any domesticated animals recently). It's not a
big deal, really, I have drops (thanks again Amanda!) and since I treat it
right away it never really gets out of control - it's just annoying.
Oh, before the pink eye...i was actually woken up by blaring Namibian music,
skipping. No offense to any Namibians reading this - we are all allowed to
have our own musical tastes and preferences - in my opinion, Namibian music
sucks. Someone turns on a casio-synthesizer-like loop, and it goes and goes
not just for one song, but for all songs. I'm not kidding, one album with
however many songs has the exact same loop. So a skipping CD doesn't sound
that much different than the normal song. And there's some muffled sort of
lyrics. Not singing so much as making sounds that sort of follow the looped
music, with the occasional yell or holler. So I laid in bed for a bit with
the pillow over my head. But it got too hot. So I got up.
(Then pink eye thing.)
Then I went into the kitchen anxious for my instant coffee and Saturday
morning breakfast that I've nearly perfected, to find that it was a
disgusting mess. Old food, supremely dirty dishes, stickier than usual
table, crusted over burners where porridge had boiled over, and a pot of
goat meat currently boiling over (which carries an awful sour smell). I
just kept thinking, my god, everything these people touch turns to gross. I
mean there's a layer of dirt mixed with oil on the kitchen shelves about 2
millimetres thick. Every time I turn the water on in the kitchen to fill my
electric kettle, my fingers come away greasy. There's a steady stream of
flies, and sadly, cockroaches. Uneaten or half eaten plates of food and not
even rinsed dishes sit out for days. Now, this is NOT the general Namibian
way of life. Another teacher came over recently and was repulsed. And a
Namibian roommate of another volunteer is downright OCD when it comes to
cleanliness. And Mark, don't tell me that I just have a westernized notion
of 'clean'. My standard of 'clean' here is a far cry from what your typical
American would tolerate - just look at the pictures of my feet! Plus, it's
not like we're living in a mud hut. It's a house, and there's a shop a
couple hundred feet away with cleaning supplies. No, in my house's case,
the problem is the sense of impermanence that the people that stay in and
use the house have, even though they've been there for 2+ years now. They
don't care about it at all, so there's no pride or sense of ownership. And
I guess they just don't care how disgusting everything is. They do find it
disgusting - I've seen the wrinkled noses - they just don't do anything to
fix the situation.
So anyway, I kind of started freaking out, mad like. When my housemate came
out of his room I told him that I was really upset, and if this kind of
thing continued I was going to take the hot plate that James bought more or
less for me into my room and keep it there. (And just start living in my
room basically all the time) His response was that he would "just call some
learners to clean this mess." But as the coffee kicked in a little I
realized that that was 1000% not the way to handle things.
A little bit later I asked my housemate if he could kick down some money for
some actual cleaning supplies for when the learners do come and clean. See,
right now, they use dirty rags and a dirty mop. And there's no soap. (Btw,
not just random learners, but the same ones who are over all the time doing
his and their cooking.) He said maybe next week, so I offered to loan him
the N$50 (USD $6).
After my breakfast, and my first attempt at hot waxing my own legs (that's
another story), I went down to the shop and picked up some soap, sponges,
new dishtowels and a new mop. I brought all back and asked Annastacia to
clean just one of the shelves so that we could put their clean dishes there.
(Oh, I keep ALL my stuff completely separate, for this very reason, so this
is just their stuff I'm talking about). I explained that when the food
boils over onto the hotplate, it burns there, making everything smell and
eventually ruining the hotplate. I told her that the mop should not be
thrown onto the ground outside after it's used. And when a rag is used to
clean something, the rag itself also needs to be washed. She and Mr. T's
long term girlfriend who was over for the weekend kinda dove into the
cleaning effort. I don't know if it was for my benefit or not, but they did
more than I asked. And seemed pleased that I helped wash their dishes, and
made a sign for the now 1 of 2 clean shelves that said "Clean Dishes Only".
I don't think they were too thrilled when the actual cleaning was taking
place...particularly when one was literally scraping off that 2 millimetres
of dirt and oil with a rusty old knife...but all seemed happy with the
result.
I'm under no disillusion that things will stay clean in the kitchen, none
whatsoever. Too many people make an absolute mess of the table and kitchen
all the time. But today at least was nice. And in the end I'm kinda proud
of myself or not letting my freak out bitchiness get too out of control.
Anyway, day in the life...
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