Chore Time

Thursday mornings we have Chore Time. That’s when most of the team congregates at the School or the Patio, cranks the music and cleans for 4 hours straight. We clean bathrooms, dust shelves, alphabetize books and paint over graffiti. But mostly, we sweep and mop.

At the end of my first two weeks here I had mopped more than the rest of my life combined. In the first month I had swept more. I am not exaggerating. But seriously we even sweep the street in front of the School and the Bodega- that’s about half a block of street. The first time I swept the street, I was working hard at having a good attitude and not really succeeding. So I asked someone- Why? The answer: If there is lots of dust on the street, when the wind blows it will blow the dust into our buildings, then we would have more cleaning inside to do. I quickly accepted and tried not to think about it any more. But I am convinced that it is also partially a cultural thing. Some people sweep and MOP the sidewalk in front of there house or store. Every day.

This week I was assigned to clean the tinacos. That was the most fun I have had during chore time. Except maybe Spanish lessons. No, I’m serious- I like cleaning tinacos. What is a tinaco? Well, here in Mexico we have running water most of the time- but its is pretty common to go a few hours or even a day without it. So, most people have big barrels on top of their houses to hold water for those times. Anyway, the main point is that I had to climb inside of these big barrels to clean them. I spent about an hour total scrubbing away in the tinacos. I also used a Shop Vac to get the last bits of water out! Ok, I wouldn’t do it in my free time, but for a chore assignment, it was entertaining.

Photo of me cleaning the smallest tinaco. Is it weird that I am writing about this? Oh well. Notice the blue sky. Today was the first day in over 2 months that it was cloudy. The rest of the time, the sky looks like this photo. I love Mexico.