the lap of relative luxury.....

I've been in a bit of a quandry for the last few days. And more recently, for the last 10 seconds, because the word 'quandry' looks wrong, all I can think of is 'quarry' (there's one on the way from Misungwi to Mwanza, lots of rocks in this region). But I think quandry is right. OR quagmire, another qua word that seems to be a bit heavy for my purposes but might also fit.

So the dilemma (aHA, thats the word I want) for the past couple of days is how to deal with my house help. For those of you out there still under the impression PC is a challenging, roughing-it experience, I'm sorry to shatter those images. I have house help. To be more precise, a guard who also gardens, and a housegirl to take care of chores.

Problem numer one is the housegirl. Her name is Sato, which means Telapia in Kisukuma, and she's nice. Haven't pinned down her age, but figure something like late teens early 20s. I know she finished elementary school and nothing more, but hasn't given birth yet (and hopefully won't while she's working for me! How bad to have the sex-educator's househelp getting knocked up, it would be a blow to my street cred). Anyways, she comes 3 times a week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She sweeps and mops the floors, washes all my clothes (by hand), washes all the dishes, fetches water for me if it's not coming from the pipe in my yard, and cooks me a small meal for dinner. All this for the grand total of 10,000 Tanzanian shillings a month, less than 10 dollars. And that's twice the going rate, I felt generous.

So Sato isn't really a problem per say, just that I feel increasingly guilty having hired her. I'm sure I provide her family with an important source of income, but I nevertheless have mixed emotions. For one, I am constantly defending myself with regards to cooking, and trying to break gender stereotypes that only women can clean and it's not a man's job to do so. Which is absolutely true, it's not a 'womans' job, men can do it just the same! That said, doing these chores is a HUGE pain in the neck here and I would gladly pay three times what I'm paying now to not have to do them. But how do I go about this without making it seem sexist? I guess the honest truth is that it's not sexist, it's classist. I have money and my time is more valuable doing other things, not laundry. That's gonna make me feel a lot better. I guess I'd better just dismiss this and focus on the more pressing problems, like the fact she throws plastic into my compost pile and rearranges my living room furniture pretty much every time she comes. And uses too much oil in cooking. My clothes, though, are pretty freakin clean.

So if 10 dollars for 3 days/week (a few hours a day) seems dirt cheap, get this. I also have a guard, who also gardens. He comes EVERY NIGHT, period, no weekends or holidays. And then he comes a few days a week to do garden work. He gets 20 bucks a month. Why don't I feel as guilty about him? Well, lately he's kind of been doing a shitty job, which is problem number 2. Lately, since an outdoor light near his 'guard-shack' has been busted, he (Mzee Juma) has been sleeping like a baby every night when I come home from Dominics house (on that front - i'm hoping La Revancha is over soon, it's getting good, but these late nights are killer!).

Additionally, he's been pretty slack about bringing drinking water and doing gardening work, and it's starting to bug me. Also, he's asking to borrow money a lot. Granted the money is coming from his end-of-the-month salary, but still. It's kind of put me in an akward situation, especially because the more I think about it the less I need a guard. I have iron gates on both the doors to my house, so short of bringing electrical equipment and fire-cutting through, noones getting into my house. And even if they do - I don't really have any valuables! No TV, fridge, big pile of cash, etc etc. So Mzee Juma really kinda just guards a few buckets sitting outside my house. And since he's started sleeping so soundly, he's not even fulfilling his other function as ears to hear me if I start screaming in the middle of the night with some tropical illness. Besides, I have a phone for those instances.

So that's where I am now. At this point, thinking about firing the guard and asking the housegirl to come every day and kind of be both cleaner and 'house-watcher'. That way I save money and the people I think deserve it get a reward. But I hate firing people. What am I talking about, I've NEVER fired anyone. This should be fun.


**An update on the daladala wars, which is officially what they are since I lost it this morning at the Mwanza main stand. The price is still high, but there's a new guy coming to town with a big 'coaster' oversize van (or small bus if you will), who plans on dropping prices back to usual. This morning I finally lost it after the dalaldala proceeded to race at break-neck speed, even over speed bumps, all apparently while the front left tire was moments from wearing completley out and falling off. They got caught by police in town and, of course, lied to the woman asking where the conductor was. So when the conductor (I knew who he was) asked me for money, I told him that I already gave it to the konda, who they had told her got off outside of town. He of course knew this wasn't true, the driver got all mad, and I basically got them in even more trouble since I busted them for lying to the police officer. I still had to pay, but felt pretty damn good about what I did. What goes around comes around. It was my turn to say 'touche'