Cleaning the Building

One of my fondest memories in Kenya is when my project in Kibera cleaned up before we moved into our new building. It still had a lot of work to be done, but with all the dusty mess, the workers couldn’t see what needed to be repaired or filled in. So the project got its youth members to come and clean the building one Saturday. We rolled up our trousers and began sweeping out all the rooms. This created a cloud of dust from the whole place, I tell you. After minor asthmatic attacks, we resumed our work. The real fun (and what a sight) is when they began washing the floors. Their method was to shake detergent powder all over the floor of one room, then pour water from the jugs they kept retrieving on top, and take the local broom, which looks like bundles of twigs, and mix it all up. It made so many suds that you just had to take your shoes off because soap bubbles were everywhere. Then each room poured out into the hallways, and from the hallways, the soap streamed onto the porches and into the ditches outside used for water removal. It was pouring out of every cavity, wave after wave. All the houses were out, taking their first look at their new neighbors, pushing and playing in a massive amount of suds! It may not have given them the best first impression of us, but it gave me a great first impression of the building.