Different People Do Things Differently: Employment Abroad

Living abroad, immersed in another culture, you learn different perspectives, different manners and mannerisms. Adapt. In some things more than others.  I remember as a 12 year old French exchange student with a temperature, being presented with a very large torpedo-shaped squidgy jelly pill.

'Too large to swallow' I thought. 'Huh?'

And then, by graphic demonstration, the French mum introduced me to a whole new procedure on how medicine may rapidly hit the spot. Arghhh.

On the same visit, a wobbling, yellow-ridged organic mass sitting in my soup plate, glowering at me. 

'La soupe a la cervelle', they said brightly.  'You don't eat that in Britain.' 

Gulp.  Brain soup. No, not a common dish in Seventies Swansea.

You come to learn how different things matter in different cultures.  How dropping by, on spec, on the off-chance was outlawed in Germany, even amongst liberal leftie students in 1980s Berlin.  How close friends, parched, drenched, passing by my door would phone from the phone box opposite my flat, would arrive hot-foot, a minute later, and present a giftwrapped box of chocolates Mitbringsel from their rucksack, which they'd pre-prepared for the eventuality six months ahead. Never arrive unannounced or emptyhanded, even in extemis or if just coming for a cuppa.

In poverty-stricken Madagascar where pot-bellied malnourished tots abounded, how I bridled at the sparkling cement 'wasted' in my eyes on upgraded tombs for the ancestors.  My friend took me gently to one side.
'I know that in Britain when you have a little extra money you buy a pension for your old age.  Here we know that any prosperity comes from the spirits of the ancestors, and so we try to treat the ancestors well, even when we ourselves have little.'
Admonished. Chastened.

But then, when I was younger, footloose, fancyfree, when the stresses of Abroad got too much you could, in extremis, retire to bed for the day with a pile of good escapist books. Equanimity renewed, back into the fray. But in Kenya, in midlife, Abroad enters the safehaven home. Crosses the drawbridge. Penetrates the inner citadel, in the form of our staff, or in this case, our newly hired part-time cook.  Number Three so far, if you join the blog at this point.

Bright-eyed, the new cook, has worked in restaurants before. German restaurants, I noted with glee. Has a whole host of culinary skills. Is keen, eager, enthusiastic.  I'd explained at interview and on Day One that we only needed a part-time cook. 3-7pm, part meal preparation, part being a responsible youth worker in the house while we trailed home from work, or even launched into the post-summer plans of a Fitness Regime. 

'The other meals, - and at weekends - we prepare ourselves.' I said clearly. 'We want the children to be confident cooking and clearing away for themselves - they need to, back in Britain. So it matters that they, and we, keep in practice now.' 

So the deal was struck, 3pm on Day Two, Bright-eyed would be back at work.

And she was.  In style. 

It is the DogDays of the holidays. Tom it was true, had driven off to work at 630am as usual. At 750am I was thinking about getting up.  Heard a loud clanging, clattering, banging in the kitchen.  Saucepans. Lids. Glass.  And some tutting. Unusual for a burglar to tut, surely.

By the time I'd showered, dressed, the clanging had reached forttissimo levels.

'Hello Bright-eyed, what are you doing so early?' 

'I'm cleaning the cupboards. Clearing out. Rearranging them, so the things are where they should be. Where I want them to be.'

Oh dear, 0-100 on the stressometer in three easy sentences. I don't think I'm particularly possessive.  Even think I'm fairly easygoing.   Hadn't realised I was bonded to my kitchenware.  To which saucepan goes where.  Suddenly realised a whole new minefield in my psyche.

I managed to bite my tongue on my outrage.  Somewhat.  Was a tad redfaced, highpitched, pre-caffinated.  Had a clear conversation, I thought, about me cooking too. For over half the time. Of the children, me, Tom needing to be able to find things where they expected.  Of the importance of discussing, consulting, asking permission before acting in someone else's space.  Rearranging their kitchen cupboards. Did touch on the thorny question of 'but why seven hours early Brighteyed?' 

'Well I can't possibly work in conditions like this. It needs cleaning. Sorting.'

Please don't criticise on Day Two. Bite tongue again.

Several hours of banging later I venture back into the kitchen to make sandwiches for lunch.  Yes it is spick and span. Better ordered even. But much of what is now filling the large bin had been formerly Being Saved. Washed, stacked yoghurt pots for food leftovers in the fridge or for transporting guineapig pellets to the hutch.  Empty cereal boxes for junk modelling or for guineapig playpens. Ginger marmelade, imported from UK, for eating. In solitary pleasure. Snarling at anyone else who ventured close.

'Well I didn't want them so I threw them away. They were rubbish.'

One person's rubbish is another person's carefully hoarded soon to be model cardboard lorry or frozen soup holder. OK if you now had visions of a hoarder's house with piles of teetering newspapers saved from the 1950s. It hadn't been like that. Had been perfectly clean, tidy, ordered - but prepared for summer holiday eventualities. Now shorn. Bereft. Denuded. Without consultation.

Because in Kenya, 'Different people do things differently' is not a widespread catchphrase, though of course they do. In school Kenyan pupils don't learn to analyse or to see things from another's perspective, but to give the officially endorsed answer, word for word, to the question.  Officially endorsed answers are of course, not open to tweaking, responding to research, feedback, audience response, customer comments.  To difference. Intuition. Shades of grey. Gradations. Or to out and out quirky eccentricity. They instead are standardised.  Mass produceable. But it's our home. My kitchen too. Not a restaurant. If I can't be odd, quirkily eccentric, a potentially creative mum, even off the scale a daffy hoarder in my own kitchen, where may I be?

And the difficulty with officially endorsed answers in cooking, is that taste matters.  Tastes differ. Nigella's guacamole is different from Nigel's from Jamie's from Gordon's from mine.  I said to Bright-eyed on Day One,
'Well its great you can do greek salad, and we like it alot. But with olives and not with aubergine or mushrooms like you used to do it in the restaurant.'

I said it again on Day Three, this time with more explanation:

'Mushrooms are expensive, and we like them better when they're cooked. Please can you leave them out of the salads as it's a waste.' 
But each day nice salads, tasty salads - but with added mushrooms. That's how they did it in the restaurant. Standardised. Thats how we - in a different context, with different priorities - have to have it. Unless I, my cookery books, different standard answers, can get through.

And the early morning starts?  Part-time working isn't common in Kenya, though it is more so for cooks. But we discussed hours at interview, agreed them at the pre-meeting. repeated them on Day One, for Day Two. But somehow, because Bright-eyed hasn't encountered it before,
'See you at 3pm tomorrow' became an 8am arrival. Three days running, despite corrections each day.  I get that, in a new job, you want to do your best. Show what you can do. Demonstrate you're indispensable.  Not be found slacking. But it makes me feel invisible that what I say clearly, several times, in different ways just gets disregarded as too new and too confusing. 

It isn't just Bright-eyed.   Last year we had family staying in the dry season. The Friday they arrived all water to the house failed. It's happened before, quite often. We live on a hill. There are airlocks when the water pressure falls. Sometimes it comes back when you drain the airlock. This time not. For four days we carried water, poured water to flush, tried various fiddling, stopcock twisting and draining techniques, explained and explained again. At the end of Day Four I spoke to our gardener, asked if he had any further suggestions. 'Oh I switched off the stopcock at the bottom of the garden on Friday.' 

?!?!

'Because????' Without saying? With no reason or note. And then went home for the weekend?'
As though the stopcock at the bottom of the garden was maybe looking untidy. Suddenly out of place?  Needful of a rest? Could be switched off at a whim with no impact. With no need for reason, report or communication. When we had a family of four coming to stay.  I cannot understand it.

Since then I've tried to train our staff on Major Changes. Carry on your job in the usual way, that's great. If you plan or see a major change you need to discuss it with me first. What is a major change? Cutting down a tree in the garden. [Thinks of the healthy tree which was cut down without consultation, next to the dead tree which is still standing.] Switching off the stopcock. [Bitter grin.] Letting workmen take the washing machine away without warning. [But I wrote it in the guard's book that someone had taken it. Did you get their car number plate or their name? No. But they said it was alright. But you are a guard. Your job is to protect people and property. Not to let unknown visitors into our house and take away the washing machine.]  Changing all the kitchen cupboards around. Spotting a workmate who is responsible for security smoking drugs while on duty.  All true examples in the last two years.

In Britain, in Europe, if you're given a  task by a boss you do it, or report back changes, delays, failure to do it. In Kenya I give a task, communicate it, I think clearly, anticipate that it has been done if not told otherwise.  In BigCorporate that's what people do too.  But not in FormerHoardersHaven, Nairobi, Kenya.  Or, at any rate, not yet.