BABA

.

‘Who is looking after the hotel when you are away?’ people ask me. Well, this time it is Baba, and he is doing a great job. There are not many guests around- hardly any in fact, but I am in almost daily contact with Baba to see if everything is OK.

Baba has been with us from the very beginning of the hotel in 2006 when he was only 19 years old. (look up ‘sleepy little native’ in blog search above) He started as a waiter, but  he now does just about everything including showing people to their rooms, preparing the bills and negotiating  room rates with difficult guests. He does the two latter tasks better than I, who have very little patience and tend to get annoyed with guests who want to negotiate.

There was just one such guest at the hotel for the first round of voting in the recent presidential elections. It was an Italian election observer, sent out by the EU. I showed him our nicest room. He said he wanted  something  cheaper (the room in question is about E35). When I showed him a smaller and cheaper room he asked again if there wasn’t anything  even cheaper on offer. I said that I could possibly give him a room where we switched the air conditioning off, but as I was saying this I could feel myself getting annoyed.  I should have walked away but instead I heard myself saying: “You are with the EU are you not?” He replied in the affirmative. “Well, don’t they pay for your accommodation?” I knew very well that in Bamako he would have been staying in hotels that were much more expensive. “Yes they give us a  Per Diem”  he said.  So I understood that he wanted to put as much as possible of this is his pocket of course.   I continued with mounting irritation:

“ We have been surviving here for nearly two years now with virtually no guests. The rare ones that come all want to negotiate, saying that because of the crisis we should be giving lower rates.  I personally don’t see the logic in that argument.  It should be the other way around! We are the only place open  and still surviving in Djenne.  And you are here for the EU! I can’t believe you are asking me to give you a room where we should switch off the air conditioning so you can save some money!” then I swung around in disgust  and  wandered off, leaving   Baba to deal with the situation. Somewhat chastised, the man took the smallest air conditioned  room. But he continued being a nuisance and asked the price for everything, including a bottle of coke. Baba was also getting increasingly irritated.

As Baba’s  work tasks have increased  in importance, so has his confidence and  the amount of autonomy he is allowed. There are fixed prices at the hotel of course, but when the EU observer had left the hotel and Baba gave me the money and the copy of the bill that he had made out, I was very surprised to find that the Italian  had been charged twice the normal price for a very simple couscous with vegetable sauce.  “But why Baba? This is not the normal price!” I exclaimed.

“I didn’t like him,” said Baba, stony faced.