Yesterday, I hired a local boy (Manuel) to do some painting for me. He's 13 years old and is one of the few remaining local shoe-shine boys in Sosua. He's basically a good kid but does require supervision. I have to give him credit, he took his task very seriously and worked hard in the hot sun.
I had him painting the fence, some window trim and apparently part of the house along with his jet black hair. His trimming skills are not that good yet...LOL
By this time this nice young man finished up a whole gallon of paint, he looked like a gringo. He was covered with paint! Ross and I decided the poor kid should take a shower to wash some of the paint off before sending him home. Ross got the basement bathroom cleaned up for him to use. There are a few things I should have pointed out to Manuel BEFORE leaving him alone in the bathroom.
1. Closing the shower curtain when showering. Aparently, Manuel has never had to close a shower curtain (probably has never showered in an actual shower stall before). The bathroom floor was completely soaked with about a 1/2" of water on the floor. No harm done...its tiled and has a drain on the floor.
2. Shutting the water off after taking a shower. After Manuel came out of the shower and dressed in his painted clothes, he joined us on the patio. I thought I could hear water running so went to check the bathroom...yes, water was still running...towel on the floor..typical teenager.
Manuel didn't know how to put a seatbelt on either. When I drove him back to town, I had to show him how to put a seatbelt on.
This gives me some great insight into how much we take for granted. We have to re-teach our way of thinking in this country. There are so many people in this country that have not been exposed to what we consider daily acts in life. Many people have told us not to expect much from the Dominicians and Haitians when getting them to work for us. I will probably get burned for my efforts but I want to be optimistic and try and help someone everyday in some small manner. It left me with a good feeling to pay this young man for his labour and it left him with a huge smile on his face to put some pesos in his pocket.
I am going to have him come and work for me on Thursday as well.
So, now for the good part.....
Ross and I were invited out for beer and pizza last night by a couple of guys we have working on our carport. We went to the local mini-market about a km from our house...middle of nowhere...you can pick up some staples, water, etc...they bbq chicken, make pizza...it's quite a busy establishment.
We sat at the picnic tables for about three hours. Good food...cold beer and met lots of people. So, now it's dark, the guys on the bike had no headlight..."not to worry," says Blaine..."it's all downhill into town." We were all pretty gooned. Three beer (an not little beer bottles either) for RD$100 (about $3.65)I for one was glad we didn't have far to go to get home.
God Bless the Dominican Republic!
No comments:
Post a Comment