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I was really annoyed that I had to miss “Limpar Portugal” day on Saturday as we had to go elsewhere, but well done to everyone who joined in. Limpar Portugal is an iniciative thought up and organised by a group of friends that rallied the country into a day of picking up the crap that is EVERYWHERE. I was also really annoyed to read that some companies used the knowledge that 100,000 people were going out into the woods and roadsides this weekend to dump their rubbish the day before. What a bunch of utter scumbags.
This country really does my head in. We (I’ve been here almost 11 years, I can say “we” now, don’t you think?) are facing bankruptcy and a good spanking from headmistress Angela Merkel, and rely massively on tourism, yet still it is necessary for a volunteer organisation to take it upon itself to tidy the place up. Keeping the place looking good should be second nature. It should also be damnably easy: partly because Portugal is fantastically beautiful anyway (especially where there aren’t any bloody humans) and partly because the Portuguese are fanatically clean, tidy and keen to keep up appearances. Look inside the majority of Portuguese homes (not mine, mine’s a disaster) and you’ll not find a doily out of place, but as soon as you step outside, you may well step in someone else’s rubbish, falling down beautiful building, builders’ rubble or dog shit.
The last couple of weekends were spent away from home, that’s why I missed out on sticking on my wellies and rubber gloves and mucking in with the best of them in the nearby woodland. And I was reminded of something else that ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH (Sorry, my headmistressly ways are coming out again…. bring back Vitriolica!). For the first weekend we were in the Alentejo, for pleasure, the second in the Algarve, for work of sorts (not mine, his) (gosh, the Algarve is an ODD place. For me, it’s like visiting a slightly different country that isn’t quite Portugal, what with all the Union flags and cod and chips and estate agents’ billboards in English and German. I know it’s not ALL like that, but what an awfully pervasive presence the Northern European has there… I bet you could live there for ten years without coming face to face with a farinheira…, but back to the thing…..).
After many years of being somewhere, one gets used to things… or resigned to them. I am slightly inured to the ways of the grumpy Portuguese whose job it is to provide a service, but ONLY SLIGHTLY. I mean the people who work in cafés, supermarkets, clothes shops, restaurants, hotels, banks, oh, you know, pretty much everybody, everywhere. I must say, before I go on, that things HAVE been getting better in recent years… much to do with the big corps. and the brazilian invasion (I insist you read this before you read on) and when I get a girl behind the reception desk at a hotel easily saying “good afternoon, how can I help you” with a polite smile on her face I am thrilled to see that things really are getting better… only to have my hopes of service greatness dashed as she immediately drops the smile as she thinks she has done her job and hands me the room key without even looking me in the eye.
Whenever I go somewhere new I am uncomfortable. Take a hotel. I don’t know where stuff is. None of us do. Where’s the room? Where’s the bar? Where is the breakfast room? Where’s the swimming pool? I don’t want to be lead by the hand and given a sweetie, but when I ask you where the entrance to the pool is, I do want you to make me feel welcome to use the damn thing and kindly point me in the right direction… I do NOT want you to look at me like I just asked if it was ok to take a shit on the floor. I haven’t been here before. YOU have, because YOU work here. It is YOUR job to make me feel welcome so that I will come back, will direct friends to your hotel, will spend more money with you while I’m here. It’s not that I want you to be subservient to me… I just want to feel WELCOME to come and spend MONEY that will pay your bloody wages.
Is your hotel food utter crap? Because if it is, you’re an idiot, because sometimes I want to go to a hotel, not just to go out and explore, but to use as a retreat and stay IN for a day because I’m knackered and don’t want to drive, walk, cook etc., i.e. the stuff I normally do at home, the stuff I’m escaping from, and will pay good money to not have to go and find a restaurant nearby.
I know I’m talking from a foreigner’s perspective… the history professor doesn’t even notice the less than perfect service in many cases, but that’s kind of the point. Portugal is SO in need of money at the moment, because we might be saying hello to the escudo again soon if we’re not careful, and foreigners have to be made to feel welcome to spend their escudos or euros if we’re REALLY lucky.
Also, could you PLEASE get over this LOOKS thing. If someone comes into your shop, looking a bit crap because she has a busy life and doesn’t have time every day to put on full makeup and dress up for the opera, BUT speaks VERY politely and friendlily (?) to you, could you PLEASE not treat her like scumbag and be monumentally rude, because she would have bought that very expensive bottle of perfume from you for her moth-in-law’s special birthday, but now has told all her friends not to shop with you, and will be sticking her tongue out at you every time she passes your shop, you horrible, badger-haired old bag. EVERYONE WILL SEE MY ENORMOUS TONGUE.
In the spirit of “Limpar Portugal” I suggest a “Bloody well be NICE” day. Tourist season is upon us, and we needs their money. I’m kind of being serious. Who’s up for it?
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