Service

Incidents and Observations

There are a few things I need to note but these are out of sequence or represent continuing threads and developement.

PoolGuy comes every day

I was speculating this morning that PoolGuy is somwhat like the cats. There was the additional speculation that he watches the porn channels we have discovered on the satelite tv. So he comes eveyday at an early hour and dos his job in the hopes of seeing some western female topless or even the remote promise of a casual sexual encounter. It’s like the cats. Hang around because something good might happen

Samira comes every day

Samira is rather relentless in the way she cleans. Everyday the rugs go up, the floors are washed, the beds are turned over. The poor girl had fallen on a wet floor a few weeks before we arrived and hurt her hip. She limps from room to room, beating and cleaning and we just don;t know what to do about her. Bonnie suggested she just take a break, sit down in a comfortable cjair in the utility room, out of sight and relax for an hour or two. But ths doesn’t sit well with her. It’s understandable. In an econimy where jobs are scarse, one must be seen to be performing all the time, lest the notion form that you are not doing your job or that your job is unecassary

Some of the cats watch the staff

Marwar said yesterday when he approaches the house with a tray, we are sure to be visited by a cat or two or three. It’s seems to be the gray (Fes) and the tabby (Jinane) that take their cue from a man with a tray. Majdouline has taken to coming a little earier in the day. We have identified a fourth young cat, who is mostly gray with red highlights in his hind quarters. I feel the need to name him Rabat. He comes early in the day also. And there is definitely a mother, a morning animal who I wish to call Sublime. AS I have noted before she is quite the climber and Majdouline takes after her. Now I guess we have to get started on naming the birds.

I am a little clumsy the next day, or more clumsy then usual, because of a great bottle of rose we had last night at the most spectacular of hotels. Found after a circutious and lengthy journey from our place — lengthy because while it is close there is no direct road, only an interesting snakes nest combination of roads, the last of which was just plain amusing in a drivng up to meet the drug dealers/gun smugglers kind of way.At two of the turns there where stone markers with the name of the hotel. The first one had been knocked over, as if some rambunctous and in a hurry cab driver had barrelled into it, or perhaps some playful boys had merely pushed it over, or some overly agressive ram, because the sign actually didnot look the worse for it’s fall.

I am hardly capable of describing the hotel. Built new but built on an old style, there were many dramatic touches and details. The sun, the clouds and the moon all seem to frame the building in a conspiratorial way. We had drinks by the pool, where each lounge chair was backed by a stout and beautiful palm, not a date palm, abd the far end of the pool had a veritable palm shrine erected. The late day and setting sun gave way to a gentle glow produced by well placed spots on each palm and the shrine began to radiate in a way demmanding of worship. With the wine were two plates of amuse busche, done in a novelle style and a little casual for great praise but entirely satisfying and complimentary to the wine.

The staff was suprised to see us because again there was confusion about the arrangements. We seem to be pushing the wrong buttons all the time. We have become quite a confusing burden to the staff. The niceties of service always involve a complex set of behaviors, a fixed but not always explicit set of requests and responses. We seem o have our channels crossed, and are perhaps communicating our desires and wishes to the wrong people at the wrong time. Certainally, my few communications with Denis seem to have a question lingering over them, as if it was a little mystery why I would request tea through him. It leads me to belive there were channels I needed to use below the level I have been using. AS this was never said to us, I am a little peeved. Did we not meet their intial expectations and thus deflated the cushion of protection, the delicacy of care they wanted to deliver. Certainally the next day phone call, which we did not answer, may have been a stumbling block. Who belongs to us and when they belong and why do they keep coming? They have duties to perform and perhaps this is a place to hide for some of them.

Bonnie tells me some of the cats sleep on the cushioned chairs in one of the outside areas. This is not a surprise, as if I were a cat, this is pretty much exactly where I would choose to sleep. We have seen a perfection in the arrangement of cat and propery as it exists right now. The responsible thing to do now, the gesture that would be of servic to both the cats and the people, would be to fix the little dears in a few months, so that the cat population in this immediate vincinity does not grow. There is the right balance between appearance, resources and duties right now but like many balances, it is fragile and must be served in the right way to be maintained. We regret having to lave before we can make this right. We have no seemed to be able to communicate the exact concerns we have in this matter and am not hopeful of finding an agent amongst the people here who can follow through or even understand our wishes in the matter of the cats.

As a somewhat humerous but also sad side note, we have the staff so terrorized, they are trying to sneak in and out of the place without our seeing them. But we can almost always see them. We know the clues, we can read the signs, and the place has such open and magnificent sightlines, it’s very hard for them to find cover. Plus the cathedral ceiling of the central living space tends to amplify the smallest of sounds. So if we don’t see ’em we can hear ’em coming a mile way. It’s so sad and very funny