Today I dragged myself out of bed late and put off cleaning the floor of the house until after I’d whittled new rawl plugs for the towel rail which keeps falling off the wall in the bathroom.
After sweeping up most of the sawdust and wood shavings I set off to the computer lab… to pick up a galvanized bucket with mop-squeezing attachment. There were a supprising number of teachers present for a Saturday. I told them I wanted to borrow the bucket and one said incredulously:
“you’re going to wash your house?”
and another — female — said:
“you should contract me!”
I looked at her:
“You want to wash my house?”
“Yes!”
“Youre crazy!”
and I walked off clanking my bucket behind me.
“Why don’t you want me to clean your house?” she shouted behind me.
I just laughed.
Later, while watching the spiders running up the walls in fear (I let them live: they help catch mosquitos) I started to wonder. Its a hot day and the water I was cleaning with would evaporate on the floor . The fluff balls under the sofa would get blown about by the wind from the open front door. I was struggling to keep ahead of the elements .
. o O (why didn’t I want my colleague to clean my house for me?)
I think its because she’s my colleague: She’s my equal. My perception of British culture (correct me if I’m getting this wrong, Britts) is that we employ inferiors to do our cleaning. Philippino maids … Kenyans perhaps. With all the weight of British colonial occupation of Kenya behind me, I’m not sure I want to employ someone to be my cleaner — because I’m thinking of cleaning as somehow inferior to teaching IT. And I don’t want to subjugate my colleagues.
Perhaps in Kenya cleaning and teaching are both equally regarrded ways to make a few bob.
I’m not sure, but I like the idea of that.
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