Spring Cleaning

It is clear from a casual observation of life in Bahrain that for the average fellow cleanliness is next to godliness – well, this would appear to be true for objects if not people!

Within the hotel area there are a veritable army of people, all Pakistani of course, who are dedicated to cleaning things. The room services team hunt in packs of at least 3 and spend about 40minutes in the room frequently cleaning things that are already clean. Like the inside of draws and cabinets that are unused, toilets which have remained left in splendid isolation since I moved in (the apartment has 3 loos and only two occasional occupants!); even the bears got thoroughly dusted the other day judging from their rearranged positions on my return the other day.

However, all this pales into insignificance when you see chaps standing in the man-made waterfall and ponds, carefully avoiding treading on the massive goldfish, scrubbing away for fear that some algae may form and disfigure the water feature. Outside in the car park I regularly see two fellows working their way around the edge scrubbing the kerb stones – provides some inspiration that my job isn’t so bad after all.

Outside the hotel you frequently see platoons of yellow overalled fellows picking litter off the beach and sea defence walls or taking their life in their hands standing in the road to sweep it – an endless task given an area predisposed to much sand and wind but it keeps people busy. Car cleaning is another industry. I have my personal car cleaner, an ancient Indian chap called Feisal who asks me on an almost daily basis whether I need my car cleaned and is delighted on the highly rare occasions (normally at the stage when I can’t see out of the windows!) that I agree to let him wash it by hand for about 2Bd.