I had housecleaning duty today. Today is Monday. Monday is a deep clean day: aptly named 'Deep Clean Monday'. Sweep and mop under bunks is the biggest part of it. That means everyone has to pick up everything off the floor and put it on their bunks if they want to keep it. Everything left on the floor is unceremoniously swept up and put into the free box. Today's tally:
35 pesos
2 pair flip flops
1 unopened beer
1 textbook: Human Anatomy and Physiology
3 backpacks
1 duffel bag of clothing
1 sword
1 SLR camera
1 belt
26 cigarette butts
15 cups of coffee
1 bag of Halls menthol candies
1 set of xrays
And a trashbag full of trash.
I can handle most all of it...but for the cigarette butts. Nasty, lazy frickin smokers. Just flickem on the floor. sigh. Thankfully there's no smoking inside so they were all outside and on the balcony...but still! Put yer butt in a fricken ashtray or empty fer cryin' out loud, eh?
I'm spending my evenings reading up on masonry construction techniques. I'm a barrel of fun. Learning alot - unfortunately most of the knowledge is only making me more and more aware of the questionable quality control and baseline knowledge that seems common in post disaster construction.
The real issue, too, is, as ever, cost vs life. it always comes down to that. Always. How much do you spend to save one life? Well I suppose there's also cost vs building longevity...but in the end that, too, comes down to building safety, ie, saving a life.
Well, 8pm here - dinner is done, most people have showered and have settled in for a beer or whatnot. I think it's time to load up some new tunes of the ipod and hit the showers. Feeling a bit of fuzz on my upper lip which means I've not showered in 2 days. Thankfully those were two days of laying about not doing much so I'm not a complete Pigpen. Others here go for quite long spells between cleanings. Can't imagine it: after two days I can roll big wads of sweat and dirt saturated skin balls off my arms and chest.
And with that lovely image I leave you.
:)
