Frustrating Work

We can play ball in our yard in front of the guard's room, now
that we've cleaned out some of the clutter besides the trees!

One of the most frustrating parts of living in the Sahel for our family is one thing we never expected to be like that. In fact we thought it would more on the helpful side. I'm talking about being employers and hiring help for our home. On the positive side, it is a local expectation that we will have people work for us to create more jobs. Of course it is beneficial in giving us more interaction with the culture, but it also can be very draining.

Recently we have changed our guard’s responsibilities some and it has required a lot of supervision on El Padre’s part. Some of the jobs are so simple to complete, it seems like it would be easier to just do them than to check if they have been done. In our guard’s life, every other thing seems to take priority over the job that we have given him. Some of the excuses for reasons why jobs have not been completed remind me of ‘the dog ate my homework’. But our guard is still young at 24 years old and I admire El Padre for investing in the person. Working with him on following through with commitments, completing all the work as asked each day, and the old saying, if it isn’t done well it isn’t worth doing. Hopefully things that will help him down the road also.

I am sure some of the problems come in because of such different cultural expectations. No we don’t want our sand to be swept everyday. If we leave the leaves, they will compost and make better dirt. But we do want all litter that has blown over our wall picked up and dog waste removed. Please sweep the porch completely (typically a woman’s job in addition to just thinking it looks good enough). Life has a way of becoming infinitely more complicated than we expect!

Then there are the expectations to help with health care, buy tea for the family, help them start a business, and the list never ends as it seems nothing is ever enough. Sometimes we find we have very different expectations as to what is reasonable and what gratefulness looks like. It makes me wonder what unreasonable things I feel entitled to instead of acting in a grateful way simply for the fact that I've received them in the past.

-- La Maestra