whistle while you work

There has been an onslaught on work being done to my house in Dakar. I have observed painters, construction workers, masons, people who put tile down, and electricians and I have come to a conclusion, Senegalese workers do amazing work under relatively unsafe conditions. I remember the first day the construction workers showed up at my house. One was wearing jeans and sandals, another shorts and sneakers, and the last pants and sneakers. There was not a hardhat, protective eyewear, pair of work boots, or metal ladder in sight. The men built a ladder out of scrap wood and began tearing away at the wall with a pick ax. They created holes in the wall to place beams. The beams were use to make a temporary place for them to work from to make an extension to our balcony. One man, who had a singing voice better than Paul Robeson, climbed up on the shaky planks hammering and singing away. I was certain he was going to fall or impale himself on one of the metal supporting beams. As the plaster went flying the men on the ground dodged the larger pieces. The scene reminded me of images I have seen of men building the Empire State Building. It was an incredible and exciting sight because of the danger and risk of every movement. They worked throughout the day never pausing always moving. They arrived every morning at 8:00 and left at 5:00. I was shocked when they showed up to the house on Sunday morning and worked until 2:00. The work they did is incredible with nice details and smooth lines so figuring out where the addition starts is impossible.
I am always shocked when I see people working with electrical appliances here because they have no fear. I have seen people put live wires in their mouth, prod the interior of appliances with metal objects, and splice cords like it is nothing. Today a man came over to fix out television, which died because of all of the power outages. The television was plugged in and he was poking the inside with a screwdriver like sucking on the end of some cord to get sparks. I sat watching him in terror ready to jump up and call the ambulance. Yesterday our electricity went out which was actually surprising because it has not gone out in about a week. We realized that something was wrong when there were only four houses on our street without power. My host mom went to investigate and found that someone had tampered with something outside of our house. She promptly found a large knife and scotch tape and cut and spliced some wires. She reset the power and boom we were back in business.