Under the rainbow of uniformed workers

Being responsible for the house maintenance, I have noticed that there are very specialized workers in Pointe Noire. We have the guys who come and clean the air conditioning units once a month. By hand, using a damp cloth and a bucket. We also have the guys who come to fix the internet connection. The guys who come to fix broken doors or handles. The guys who come to look at our electric system and those who only work on air conditioning units' failures. Not to be confused with the guys who clean the air conditioning units! We also have the guy who comes and cut our grass with a manual lawnmower (different from our gardener who cuts it by hand!!!), the guy who comes to herbicide our palm trees, the guy who come to collect our coconuts, the guy who comes to fill up our water tank and oil tank, etc... My favorites are the guys who come every month to check if we have any broken light bulbs. The assistant usually carries one tool, for example a ladder, or in the case of our air conditioning unit guys, a screw driver. Today workers came to the house to caulk our bathtubs. They proceeded in breaking down the old seals around the bathtub with a simple chisel and ... their fists as hammers! I leant them mine as I quickly concluded that it would go a little faster and a lot less painful! Now except for the guy cleaning our swimming pool, every other company always sends two guys minimum. Most workers take off their shoes before coming in, even if it means showing off socks with many holes. They all clean after themselves, using the dust pan and the mop like pros. They all show up in overalls too, the green ones, the bright orange ones, with the name of the company stamped on the back. Usually, you have one guy working and one guy there to assist. The second guy spends most of his time just watching the first guy do his work. Then, of course, you also have the nanny or maid watching the guy watching the guy working. The third person is very important because one of the first rules an expat learns here is that you never leave an outside person alone in your house. It protects you against potential thefts. So you always ask your employee (usually the maid but in my case, it is the nanny) to just stand there, follow them around and watch the guys do their work. And in the case of my nanny, she also likes to give them orders. Even so, one is not protected against thieves. One expat lady (who has since left the country) told me a true story. She had some workers come to her house and consequently dutifully asked her staff to watch over them. Not only did they follow them around but the guard also searched them when they left. One of the workers had somehow managed to hide one of her son's little cars in his shoe. Quite a stupid thing to steal when one's job is on the line. Anyway, while I try to keep the house tidy, it is quite impossible with the girls to do so. I have accepted that some things will probably disappear... so far, I have only noticed a wash cloth with little green bears on it was missing. My staff is either honest (which I tend to believe) or very clever. I was told to watch for the "Nigerian Method" for example. This is a more subtle way of testing the boss's awareness of his/her surroundings. One moves an object to a different place (usually near the original location) every few days. If the boss doesn't say anything or doesn't bring the object back to its original location, the object ends up missing entirely. In my case, they could be stealing in front of me, I wouldn't even notice. Most of you know how much of an airhead I am. Even my children remind me of things to do now. By the way, Mae, our champion eater and poop maker struck again. This afternoon she produced a bright fluorescent green poop which puzzled her nanny enough that she had to show it to me. We racked our brains to figure out what had happened and our conclusion came down to the following..... crayola wax crayons do brighten every kid's creation, even in a baby's diaper!