work

It is 9am and I am already watching the clock and dreading having to tie that ankle length apron around my waist and walk into The Club this afternoon. I know I will walk out exhausted with half the day having passed me by. Don't feel sorry for me. I must do this. I want to do this. I need to do this. I am exactly where I am supposed to be, but I can still complain a little along the way. Getting the complaints out helps make room for more positivity. My boss yelled at me. The one with the mustache who wears maroon colored dress shirts and bad ties. I could tell he was the nervous type, always verbalizing his frustration, always a little overwhelmed. He never introduced himself when we met, just flustered around looking for an apron for me acting annoyed and bothered. I got the feeling introductions were not necessary. I'm the employee and he is the boss. Pleased to met you. He yelled, "THEY ARE RIGHT THERE!! Get em yourself!", when I asked the bartender for two wine glasses. I assumed glassware was behind the bar. It's not. Now I know. "Give me a break Mr. Mustache I am new, I didn't know and I won't do it again." Clearly he views me as insolent and in need of strong reprimand, rather than the new girl who is fully capable once properly informed. Jerk. No one yells at me. My father has never raised his voice at me. No one talks to me this way. This is not the military. Now I just avoid him. I struggle finding most all of this important. He freaks about not having enough table linens. 6 months ago I was freaking because a family of three were lying dead in the middle of the road in Pemba, 9 months ago there was a cholera outbreak in the village near where my friends live, 3 miles from my own. Two months ago the entire city of Pemba was under water and thousands lost their homes and many their lives. So excuse me Mr. Mustache if the table linen seams are not centered, my mistake. Please go back to your mumbling and fast walking and please don't yell at me. 

I worked 13 hours with no proper break on Mother's Day. I could sue. I won't. Their lack of proper management could drive me to yell at people but I won't. They really need a logistics person to come in and get that place organized and they need to hire about 20 more servers and purchase about 2000 more knives, forks and spoons. But I am not there to figure out solutions to their problems. But if they ask I could produce a list. I am there to schlep dishes and barware and clean and scrub and reset tables and move tables and fold linens and greet the members with a smile and by their name and serve them their eggs benedict with kindness. None of the other employees seem bothered. They grumble and complain but they continue going about doing their jobs as I shake my head knowing there has to be a better way to do this or that. Afterwards, I join them and follow along and chuck my dishes into the dish pit and shove open the swinging doors and hit the lush carpet with a smile. I hate it there, but there is a purpose in the midst of it all and I know it. I have already met the kindest couple you could ever meet and I genuinely look forward to seeing them. I've made friends with a fellow waitress, mother of two who also had to work on Mother's Day and made my 13 hours pale. Not to mention I have already made enough money to live in Cameroon for two months. And on Sunday I got to have cheesecake for lunch. It was all I had for breakfast, lunch or dinner but I am trying to be positive here. 

When I think about labor and hard work I always see Granny McDowell, widowed mother of seven sheering her own sheep and growing her own tea and coffee, breaking her back to put food on the table in 1914. And I see sweet Veronica in 2014, walking miles to my house with a bucket on her head, five children to feed, all abandoned. Dirt floors, leaky roof, rats biting her children in the night. Her arms and back tight and strong from hard labor. It is all she knows. She showed up for work the day after giving birth. I know nothing of hard work. I am soft with lots of sofa sitting. I can do this. I have five more hours to convince myself. Veronica would be proud. I can do this for her and the women like her and those girls in Cameroon I have yet to meet. And I can do it for myself because I need to make money and a few lessons in humility can never hurt. Who said that? They do hurt but they help and one day I will look back on this season and smile and thank God for this opportunity. It was actually this little gift of "table waiting" that helped fund the last few years of my life and taught me a little skill that I passed on to my students in Mozambique who are now waiting tables of their own. Sweet Rofi sent me this just this week after I told him I was working in the States for a little bit:

Oh i can not bealive that you are working as a waitress. that job is so very hard you can not imagine how much that job so very hard for my self doing scholl at same time. any way congratulation on your new job. fortunately my scholl is going well and tthanks to God for everything also missig you to teach me some knowlogde of public admistration. god bless you dear sister.

Yesterday, my only day off, I met Mom and Dad in Chattanooga and returned the truck I used to move up here. I am back in the June bug and maybe commutes with the top down will help my attitude. Maybe. We ate sandwiches and I had gelato and I complained and they listened. I have longed for the day when I can work and make money and I know pay day will help put things into perspective and these next few months will fly by and I will soon be boarding a plane to Africa with money in my bank account. So this is good. Complaints come out and positivity finds a place in their stead. Did I mentioned that I live in the prettiest house in all of East Nashville? And with the kindest, sweetest, smartest, prettiest, funniest girl in all of Tennessee? I do. I am abundantly blessed to have this open door and place to come and be myself and be loved.  Nothing is required of me. No one yells. If they do it's because Call the Midwife is on and I am being beckoned to take my place on the sofa. 

"Scoot" parked outside of Veronica's house. That's her in the yard wearing my shirt. Her son and grandson playing with the tire.

The only person who can get away with calling me fat. She means it as a term of endearment. I miss her loads.