eunice

eunice is our cleaning lady. at first, she came on tuesdays. lately she's been coming on tuesdays, or wednesdays, or thursdays... or maybe both wednesday and thursday, if she doesn't get it all done in one day. eunice cleans our main rooms, but not our bedrooms. she cleans the bathtub, but more importantly, she organizes all of our shampoos and conditioners and shaving creams, etc., around the tub into neat rows and clusters. it seems that she organizes these things according to who she thinks uses what. 

most of eunice's time is spent on our couch. i'll wake up, and she'll be sitting on our couch reading our magazines. i say hi, she says hi, and then she goes back to reading. last week i came home and eunice was sitting outside at our patio table, chatting with a friend. she often makes tea for herself. she keeps her lunch in various peoples' refrigerators, and not necessarily in the refrigerators of the apartments she is cleaning that day, so she's bound to come into any apartment at any time on any day.

one of my friends walked into her apartment to find eunice sprawled on the couch. her shirt was folded up, revealing her large stomach, and her wig was sitting next to her on the couch. when she saw my friend, she said "ahhh, it's so hottttt..." how do you respond to that? yes, it is hot indeed, however i'd feel more comfortable if you put your wig back on your head and put your shirt down while you're sitting on my couch.

this just exemplifies the work ethic here. i'm not implying that people don't have a work ethic, or that they're lazy, but the idea of time and productivity is so different. in the united states, a person would get paid by the hour and they would have to get a certain amount of houses or rooms cleaned per day. obviously, eunice has no such guidelines, because she does a little work, makes some tea, talks to her friend, reads the newspaper, organizes our shampoo, maybe cleans the floor, sits down to rest, watches soap operas on our tv, eats her lunch... she literally hangs out in our apartment for hours and hours. i find it hilarious. her outlook on work is just amusing to me.

in other news, we were ecstatic to discover that the tv show 30 rock is on here, mondays at 7:30, so i'm looking forward to that tonight. we also got a dvd player and new speakers, which has revolutionized the way we hang out here. i love our apartment. it's become a central location for people to hang out since people are always passing by or through.

i've been eating a mango or papaya a day. mangos are fifty cents here and delicious. it's awesome.

nicole, katrina and i booked flights to durban for the end of april. very excited. must start planning things to do/place to stay.

the pope has been traipsing around africa lately, and i think that this is maybe the worst advice that anyone can give africa right now.

it hit the upper sixties here last week, and people were wearing ugg boots and sweaters. really?!