Servants and food

It’s very hard to try and help around the house of someone who has taken you in but also has three servants at all times….I try to clear the table but its not worth it when someone is there to clean up. I also try to play with the kids for some time so their mom can work, but there is a woman for that too…so really there’s nothing I can do! There is one guy here solely in charge of the gate, actually two men who rotate turns at night. One of the guys only comes Sunday nights. Another man who is solely in charge of driving and then there is the guy who does all the handiwork around the house, the pool the garden, the laundry. He is here everyday except for Sundays. Then there is the main nanny for the little girl who is also here everyday except Sundays, and she watched Sarah, does her hair, showers her and cleans the house and cooks. Sarah showers between two to three times a day, and it’s a struggle every time to get her into the shower. The last helper comes after the first two go home for the night. She has the night routine of cleaning up the house while we sleep, and if Sarah wakes up helping her go back to bed. Sarah is super cute and sweet but after almost a week here, she driving me nuts. She throws approximately 7-10 tantrums an hour, and over nothing. She just wants to throw one, and everyone caters to it. She stomps her feet and screams for no reason other than she wants to do it. I have lost total interest in being around her during those times so I just leave the room. But she has so many people waiting on her, it’s not really much of a surprise. But she is great when she’s great, and not when she’s not. She is also allowed to watch a ridiculous amount of television. Probably around 6-7 hours a day she watches something and then screams when everyone wants to watch the news. I’ve seen plenty of tellitubbies, curious George and Dora the explorer in French now. She just zones out.

David, the older brother is 11 and he’s more relaxed and into doing his own thing. He’s also very polite. I talked to Fatou about them moving to France and asked if she was going to have any servants there, she laughed and said “no too expensive” and then told me they went their last summer for one week and she lost 5 pounds just from doing all the active work she doesn’t do here! So now that she is going to live in France for two years I can image things are going to change for her! Seriously, everything is done for us; I tried to do my own dishes this morning and was pushed out of the way…although my room is kind of off limits for them so at least I can fold my own clothes. It actually kind of annoying.

I also thought I should share some food stories with you. For breakfast in this house at least there is always a pot of tea, and the kids always have hot chocolate. Then there is some bread where the kids put nutella on it. So chocolate and some more chocolate for breakfast for the kids. For lunch it is a full sit down lunch with a cucumber salad and some meat. Yesterday it was fried chicken; including the head...i did not eat that. Then dinner almost exactly the same as lunch and always with some “red water” as Eve calls it, or wine. If there are guests a local cuisine is always cooked too, but apparently the kids don’t like it so much so unless there is a guest it is not made. The local food is kind of the same as in Kenya, a sour green boiled with some corn meal paste eating with your fingers. Sometimes when there are guests you can see who usually eats with their hands at home and not with forks and knives just by the way they hold their fork. Also some people are not used to eating at the table, so those people are often holding their plates above the table while eating instead of letting it rest. Interesting to watch!