Celina, I am sure you don't know who I am. Neither do you know how I came about your name. But I know you despite the fact that we have never sat down face to face. You were the one making my room everyday yet we never met one on one. Please, that should not be taken literally. I mean we never discussed. Not that we are both "deaf and dumb" but that was the reality of the moment.
You were doing your own business as housekeeper while I was doing mine as a tourist-guest in your country. I saw your welcome note the very moment I arrived in the hotel. You placed it in a very conspicuous corner in the room. In it, you said your name is Celina and that you had made a commitment to ensure that my room was spotlessly clean and well made up. You were very sincere and professional about your job. You said if anything was not quite right in the room, I should feel free to contact the Duty Manager.
You did not just stop there. You went ahead to introduce one Jorge Espada Simoes as the manager to help me out. You left his card on the reading table. It was too good to be real. I wondered whether I was in Paradise Hotel or Buckingham Palace. I took delight in reading the manager's message: “E um prazer recebe - lo no Hotel Avenida. Com as melhores comprimentos”.
Was this some incantation? I did not have to wait too long before I saw the English translation, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Hotel Avenida. With my best compliments.” I was relieved. He even left his phone number!
Celina, is this how you normally do your work? Or were you just trying to impress me? You put roses in the bathroom for me to sniff every morning. That was quite thoughtful of you though I would have preferred a small bottle of ogogoro with which to charge the system and wake up body and make am dey kamkpeh gbam as our people in the Delta like to put it. At night, you made sure there was chocolate on my pillow. I wanted to ask, but for the language barrier, whether you thought I was in your country for a honeymoon. The setting was just too romantic for my nerves, even the biggest of them all!
For seven days and seven nights, I did not miss either the rose or the chocolate. You made me dream dreams, the ones psychologists call "puberty dreams"! For your kind, professional gesture I could not say thank you, not because I am an ingrate but because I don't understand your official language, Portuguese. Neither do you understand mine. Can you imagine that? Two Africans who could not understand each other! I should not blame you. You should not blame me either. We are both victims of colonialism. The British colonised us while the Portuguese subjugated your own people and made slaves of them in their own house.
They turned everything upside down for us. Celina, because of my lack of understanding of Portuguese, I could not move freely in your country. Apart from 'obrigado' (thank you) and 'bem-vindo' (welcome), I could not say any other thing in the realm of phatic communion. Can you imagine what happened when I met an Angolan tourist at the Peri Peri Restaurant one afternoon? I had wanted to find out about Viana, a remote town some kilometres away from Luanda which I had visited before. He did not understand the jazz I was speaking. At first, he thought I was referring to Vienna in Austria. The harder I tried by way of gesticulating, the harder I fell yakata! Just like that! Celina, it was hard speaking English to a Portuguese-speaking acquaintance. You can imagine my frustration.
It was only when I mentioned something to the effect that Viana used to be the refugee camp for the SWAPO Liberation Force in those days of liberation struggle in Africa that he jumped up saying Namibia! Namibia! He jumped up saying I was from Namibia! Poor soul! The gentleman was completely out of sync with my flow of thought but I couldn't blame him. I am sure what I am writing you now will also sound like Greek or Latin unless you get somebody to do the translation for you. It's that bad, isn't it?
But, Celina, memories are made of my stay in your country. It was an eye opener to the different way things are done in the hospitality business in my own country. Here, if chocolate is placed on any hotel pillow for me (assuming the housekeeper did not embezzle it for her children), I will not touch it because it will definitely not smell chocolate but the body odour of the last guest in the room. Bed sheets are not regularly changed as you did while I was in Avenida. All enquiries are to be directed to a duty manager who is busy attending to his own "private business" by plundering the hotel of its drinks, food and items of service. The housekeeper attends to the same number of rooms you clean for a whole day in just two hours!
Rooms are seldom equipped with a reading table. The emphasis is on the bed. They expect you to conduct all your businesses in bed. Is bed not meant for sleeping alone? No, the typical hoteliers in Niagara do not give allowance for intellectual pursuits inside the suites or rooms. They prefer only "wrestling" or "plucking" of Roses in bed. And the real roses? Never! We do not believe in such things. We remember what is called rose only on one stupid day called Valentine Day set aside for one stupid, yeye god called Venus.
Celina, I'm sure you love roses. Sorry, I must have disappointed you the day I checked out. I was professionally and ethically incapacitated to leave a bouquet behind. I'm awfully sorry for my bad manners.
By the way, Celina, I know you are married. Are you wondering how I arrived at this conclusion? Well, our people here have a saying to the effect that it is through observation that we know a very oily soup... I saw the symbol of your marital status (wedding ring) the day you handed freshly ironed towels to me and I was wondering how your husband feels over the point that your job is making bed for other men in their rooms. Well, I guess he must have concluded that it's all in a day's job.
Oh Celina, I am proud of you because you are proud of your job. May you survive all the occupational hazards that go with making beds for other women's husbands.
🌼🌹🌼 🌼🌹🌼 🌼🌹🌼 🌼🌹🌼
“A Rose for Celina” is a romantic Opilogue aka Opil♥️ve, written some years back after a visit to Maputo, Mozambique, on an official assignment. The reproduction is, as usual, just for entertainment.
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