On Wednesday and Saturday mornings, Sada cleans my hut. I could clean my hut. It’s not that I don’t have the time, though often I lack the inclination. And it’s not that my huts isn’t always tidy . . . it is, always! Tidy, impeccably organized, and overall quite clean . . . if not completely sanitary. But the floors! And during dusty season. Eeek.

I am absolutely incapable of cleaning my floors. I have real broom, yet I still cannot sweep as well as Sada with her broom-o’-twigs. And when it comes to mopping (no, no mop . . . think rags), I only succeed in making mud. So I need Sada. Twice a week.

Sada’s cleaning of my hut entails me (me, though Sada would if given half a chance) removing every piece of furniture that isn’t essentially nailed down. Bed stays, kitchen table and propane tank stays, bookcase stays, bench-sofa stays, trunk with clothing stays. I remove everything else outdoors.

On the first occasion of our cleaning the quartier children came en masse to see whether their nassara was moving out permanently. No, merely a thorough cleaning. Imagine, when the small end tables, baskets, and crates are removed, with contents, children want to inspect every single item thereon and/or within. So it’s essentially a full-time job to keep my possessions neatly organized within said baskets and tables.

With everything removed from the hut, I begin dusting the remaining items, including every food container on the kitchen shelves, with a cloth damp and bleach water. This I do while trying to stay one step behind Sada’s sweeping. Yes, behind! Don’t need dust alighting on recently wiped items. But as Sada’s sweeping concludes, it’s time for me to move outdoors to dust all recently-removed furniture (and remember that my furniture is all painted high-gloss black, foolishly), while Sada mops the floors. First with soapy water, then a rinse with bleach water.

I pay Sada 8000 cfa per month for her 15 minutes of work, twice weekly. That’s about $2.50 U.S. per cleaning. My portion, the furniture removal, dusting, wiping, and return of said items takes about 45 minutes. This is the easiest 8000 cfa that Sada ever earns. Occasionally other older women come to help, for free. This they do to get a glimpse inside their nassara’s house. I love giving them the full tour of the tiny three-room hut. OK, I do own and display a Clarisonic facial cleaner and Braun toothbrush. But otherwise, I live it a typically Burkina home. It’s the way things are arranged that fascinate the local women. As Kyle once said, it looks like Ikea exploded in my hut. I could arrange things similarly for the village women. Interiors by Katerine. But frankly, they probably think my style is bizarre and totally undesirable. Probably some offensive version of Pô decorating . . . the antithesis of feng shui here in little Pô.

Other volunteers have observed that I pay too much. But to me, it’s worth every penny. While Sada cleans I get to baby sit little Victorine. I’d pay for that privilege even if Sada didn’t clean my floors. Sometimes Victorine’s older sister, 8-year-old Sophie, helps me wipe the furniture. For this they get bon-bons.

Should there be one single dish that is dirty, my morning coffee mug, for example, it disappears while Sada’s son, Nestor, is told to wash it. I’ve never left a dirty dish in the hut overnight. Bugs and rodents, you know. If I’m simply not up to the task of washing dishes in the evening (or if the water is off), historically I’ve placed the bucket just outside the door. These days, I don’t dare. Sada will do my dishes. Once in a while Sada tells me that something is filthy in the hut. Something that perhaps I’ve never noticed, or about which I’ve been in denial. She’s been known to abscond with my three plastic-woven floor mats and scrub them to a shining brilliance. I never knew they were suppose to shine. Ceiling fans . . . another example. One day Sada washed my ceiling fans. Never knew they were a brilliant white under all that brown dust. I genuinely believed they were a dingy egg-shell color. Mouse-Back, to plagiarize the true name of a U.S. paint color.

Sada knows that I pay her too much. She wants to clean my house daily for this price. Now that’s what I call integrity. Frankly, I don’t want to be deranged daily for cleaning of floors. I sweep twice daily, and that satisfies my cleaning needs.

Some days when I’ve returned from the village, I’ve discovered Sada scrubbing my blue metal exterior door. She washes my outdoor plastic chairs and sweeps my terrace twice daily. She doesn’t do this for money. She doesn’t do this because I lead a filthy lifestyle. I don’t! She does it because she’s my friend and an excellent neighbor. She does it because I love her kids. I’m always looking around the house for some new gift that I can bestow upon Sada. Never found anything that could possibly express my thanks . . . not for her cleaning abilities, but for her friendship. What do I own that could possibly express my thanks and love for Sada? We can only speculate.