Jessie Duarte, personal assistant to Nelson Mandela,
1990-94:
He always made his own bed, no matter where we traveled.
I remember we were in Shanghai, in a very fancy hotel, and the Chinese
hospitality requires that the person who cleans your room and provides you with
your food, does exactly that. If you do it for yourself, it could even be
regarded as an insult.
So in Shanghai I tried to say to him, ‘Please don’t make
your own bed, because there’s this custom here.’ And he said, ‘Call them, bring
them to me.’
So I did. I asked the hotel manager to bring the ladies
who would be cleaning the room, so that he could explain why he himself has to
make his own bed, and that they not feel insulted. He didn’t ever want to hurt
people’s feelings. He never really cared about what great big people think of
him, but he did care about what small people thought of him.
