#nseneneinthetoilet

The woman who cleans the toilets at our workplace started talking about grasshoppers when she saw me. “You see, they are so tasty those flying insects. They taste even better when I fry them, because sometimes these people on the streets even use Vaseline. Ate when I add raw onions, ho! I can even bite my tongue and fingers!”
But because I don't eat grasshoppers, I don't know how they taste.
So I entered the stall, did my business and came out. She was still standing in the position I had left her, leaning on her mop, with a bucketful of water close by.
She continued, “Kale, my children love nsenene. Nga they live for them! Naye, they are so costly!”
“Eh?”
“Yeah, a cup of un-plucked insects costs 5,000 shillings.”
As I washed my hands, I felt the Good Samaritan in me urging me to complete her children’s evening otherwise this conversation would be repeated on my next visit.
“Kale.” I left, and returned in a few minutes. With enough for two cups of nsenene.
She thanked me profusely, asking God to bless me abundantly.
But this got me thinking. Our conversations, save for two or three, always happen in the washrooms. She is either cleaning the floor, or a toilet, or the sink, mop in hand, or sitting on a sanitary bin. I know she doesn't have her meals here, otherwise. I mean, people do all sorts of things in these places. Like they have no idea that if you find the place clean, then leave it the way you found it. I recently visited the University of Rhodes in South Africa, and my, my, my, those washrooms looked (please note the word “looked”) and smelt so clean, you could literally live and sleep in there.
There are jobs which society considers undesirable. And toilet cleaning falls in this category. In countries like the US, they are referred to in a more polite way.  Janitor. When I was still little, I thought a janitor was like a class monitor. And I wondered why they always carried mops and buckets in films.
Now, these our public toilets in Kampala, the ones which Jenny said should be accessed free of charge. Hmmm… There is that person who used to wake up every morning to the job of sitting at the entrance and collecting the 200, 300 shillings for short and long calls. And people use them as bathrooms as well. Gross. I’m not sure how regularly they are cleaned but their stink pervades the early morning air, so you can imagine. My heart goes out to the people with no other option but to use them.
Then there are the washrooms in the malls. Where you have to pay and are handed scraps of measly-looking toilet paper and warned not to “spoil” the place. And he doesn't put the change in your hand. He drops it in a bucket or on the bench where he is sitting. I mean, what if you didn't wash your hands? Its bad enough to spend the day in a smelly place, but he is not about to contract cholera or dysentry from your spatters.
So, back to my cleaner friend, she loves and values her job. The single mother told me it has sustained her family, her children are in school, they sleep well at night and she has something to do every day, however dirty or unpleasant. To her it matters little about what the odd hours she works, what sights, smells and floating messes she is subjected to as she sits alone in that cold, tiled room she calls her office. And she doesn't mind if anyone asks what she does, she proudly says she cleans toilets for a living.