03/04/09

This week and for the following two weeks, Ryan, my roommate's friend from Kentucky, will be here volunteering here. Today I got the opportunity to work with him a little. To get to that story, it begins with a comment I heard one of the other teachers say. Some time before school ended I heard Miss Cady, the preschool teacher, mention that water was backing up in her classroom but didn't think much of it. I figured that it was just a simple plumbing issue and would be corrected within a few hours. It wasn't but a couple hours later and I saw Roger with one of the workers digging out front of the school. They were working on digging down to the septic tank. I hadn't realized that there was one in front of the school. Well, they were digging down because he didn't think that the water was making its way to the septic tank. After standing there for about five minutes just watching and knowing that there weren't going to be very many volunteers at 5PM on a school night, I asked if he needed some help. He said that he appreciated the offer, but there wasn't much to do. He said that they would just continue working the next morning.

Then, he remembered and mentioned that there was some water in the preschool and they didn't have anyone to mop it up, so Ryan and I headed home to change. I was still dressed up from teaching and I needed to drop off some books. After changing, we went back to the preschool and met Roger there to find out exactly what needed to be done. Instantly, when I walked into the room it smelled like a few horses had lightened their load in there. It smelled pretty bad. Roger showed us the two places where the water had been pooling and went into the bathroom to grab a "mop". It turned out that there wasn't a mop in there but just a couple of hand made Haitian brooms. The brooms here have wooded (and a bit crooked) handles which look like they are made from two year old tree trunks that have been stripped of their bark. The broom end is made from what seems to be dried palm leaves or something of the sort. The particular broom I had seemed to have been made of just the fibrous part of the leaves. It was more like horse hair. I am not sure what they are made of exactly, but they are very much organic. In any case, Roger handed the broom to me and said that we should start by sweeping the water toward the drain in the bathroom before mopping.

Roger did find a mop and gave it to Ryan to start working with and then left. After we had been pushing the water toward the drain, Roger came back and asked how things were going. We mentioned that the mop would be much more helpful if we could ring it out. Neither one of us has seen a mop bucket. We did have a five gallon bucket but that was it. We asked Roger what we should do. Before I mention his response, I have to explain Roger a little. For one, he is very bright and usually can come up with a solution quickly. I imagine that is why he has been so successful down here where things always need to be altered at a moment's notice. He also has a good sense of humor and is quick on his feet. Well, when we mentioned that we couldn't ring out the mop he quickly said, "Just use your hands." Ryan and I just looked at each other with half half smirks as we laughed. I did stop for a second to wonder if he was serious. I mean, we are in Haiti and you do have to get your hands dirtier than you normally would in the US but there are times when you do try to be as sanitary as possible. Of course, there is no need to get your hands dirty if you don't have to. On the flip side, if there isn't a mop bucket then how are you going to do it? So, I sat there thinking, is he serious or pulling my leg? Well, during the three seconds that passed while this all went through my mind, he bent over and with one of those classic lines said, "Well, I just washed my hands, so I shouldn't get the mop too dirty." as he squeezed all the water out. Ryan and I just looked at each other and laughed at how funny Roger can be especially since it all happened so fast. Just as he rung the water out he stood up with his dripping hands, grabbed the handle, and handed the mop to Ryan.

A few minutes later he went back out to find a mop bucket. Ryan looked at me and said, "Did you see that? He just handed me the mop and the handle is dripping wet of the water from his hands." Which translated to me as, "This is dripping wet of something that was intended to go down the drain to the septic, but is now all over my hands." Which translated to, "My hands are going to fall off, I am going to die, and it was nice knowing you."

I was cracking up, mostly because I watched the whole thing, but was not affected by anything personally. Without hesitating, Ryan reached in his pocket and pulled out a little bottle of Purel and squirted it all over his hands. Before he had finished rubbing the sanitizing gel all over his hands, I asked why he was doing that since he wasn't done working. Mid sentence, as I was asking, he took the excessive amount of the gel and ran his hands up and down the handle of the mop in an effort to sanitize the entire thing. "That's why!", he said.

A little while later Roger returned and had some Pine-Sol. This was a relief because I didn't want to only remove the water and let the floor dry. I wanted to give it a nice disinfecting rinse. After about fifteen minutes of moping the floor it was nice and "clean" inside. We left some windows open for it to dry out and then left. The following morning, it was like nothing had happened. That is it was back to normal inside the preschool. Outside the school, it was a different story.