An Interesting Maid

We had some interesting experiences with the hotel staff in Albania. We can’t imagine them happening anywhere else!  Many of the families with babies or little kids were staying on the first floor of the hotel with the reception desk just down the hallway.  We borrowed a monitor from some friends to use while Sienna napped in the room.  Unfortunately, when you took the card that opens the door out of the slot, all electricity to the room was turned off, so we weren’t able to use it.  So each day I put Sienna down for a nap and then returned upstairs where Gary was teaching.  I would have to come down to the room when it was about her normal wake-up time each day.

I tried to communicate to the maid on the first day that she could still come in the room and clean but that Sienna would be taking a nap.  At some point during the morning, the woman from the front desk brought Sienna upstairs to me.  Come to find out the door was pretty loud, so anytime it was closed Sienna would wake up.  It finally got to where I would walk downstairs to check on Sienna and the maid would tell me if she was sleeping.  I walked down one day, and the maid was in our room cleaning the bathroom while Sienna was in the crib with music playing on the TV.  The maid told me that she was crying and stopped crying with the music.  I came down another day, and the woman at the front desk told me that the maid had changed Sienna’s diaper!

One day the maid told me that I needed to wash Sienna’s hair.  Since I couldn’t understand her, she could have been offering to do it for all I know.  I tried to communicate to her that I knew that and needed a towel  (we were only given 2 towels… I’m not sure if they assumed the kids would use our towels or just not need one at all during the week).  Evidently, I did not communicate effectively because I was not successful in getting anymore towels from her. The maid and the women at the front desk all loved holding Sienna. They were continually kissing her as well. They also greeted Ethan by name every time he came through the lobby.