The Roof & Trash Removal: November 4 - 5

The Roof
Since our site visit we had been attempting to get our roof fixed with little to no help from either Ma or the Peace Corps. Although we were aware that it leaked, we didn’t become fully aware of the problem until our first big storm mid-October. We about cried when streams of muddy water gushed down the freshly painted walls of the kitchen and bathroom. We didn’t have too much time to wipe our tears as we were frantically pulling extra pots from storage (thanks gogo!) and rounding up our laundry and bath buckets to collect all of the drips. At last count we had about 25 buckets around the house and still had puddles. The next rain a few days later brought even more damage as our spare bed got soaked and three leaks emerged in our room, forcing us to move our bed. Although we couldn’t imagine the kitchen getting any wetter, it leaked into our food, shoes, and refrigerator. The hallway is a lost cause, as there is no way to cover all of the gaping holes and we end up literally sweeping the water from the house.

With renewed enthusiasm we began to bother Ma, our key school principals and the Peace Corps in order to get this urgent matter resolved. Peace Corps informed us that they were not allowed to fund roof repairs and that it was the responsibility of the host family and school principals. After a month of meetings, collecting money from each of our six schools and tracking down a roofer, we were finally able to set up a date to repair the roof.

The process began on the first Saturday in November with the roofer, Joe and Kelli all up on the roof. While Joe and the roofer began the process of replacing and shifting the tin sheets that make up our roof (one sheet had a large hole in it where the wood stove chimney used to be and other sheets were arranged in a way as to leave spaces big enough for a cat to stick it’s head through our roof), Kelli took a small shovel and began cleaning out the rusted gutters which were full to the brim with dirt, rocks and plants. After a grueling day, the large holes were patched and most of the gutters were cleaned. Exhausted, sunburned and filthy, we all decided to meet up early the next morning to finish the job.

Upon walking back into the house, we were devastated by the complete mess. During all of our rearranging, patching and sweeping, large amounts of dirt, rocks and glue (used to patch the holes) had fallen into the house. The worst part was that we had been soaking our sheets in the bathtub to be washed the next morning only to discover that they were now brown with dirt. After a few hours of sweeping and cleaning we fell exhausted into bed.

The following day began with an early morning laundry session followed by another few hours of roof repairs. As Kelli had pulled a groin muscle the day before, she could not help the guys on the roof. Instead, she lay in bed recovering and attempting to plug her ears from the deafening noise of hammer and nail against tin. By mid-morning the repairs were done and only time and rain would tell if they had worked. We spent the rest of the day sweeping up the debris we had knocked down off the roof from our yard, taking care of our garbage and nursing our sunburns and sore muscles.

pictures: Just one of the 25 buckets/ pots used to catch the water falling through our roof; All of the green red and grey splotches are our attempts to patch the roof

Trash Removal: Burn and Dump
After months of saving our trash, we finally decided to cave in and burn and bury our garbage like everyone else. We realized that saving recyclables was unreasonable since we had no where to store them without attracting pests, and no means to get them to a recycling center in Pretoria, if we could find one. Since we had been holding out for so long, we had a large pile of paper, packaging and junk from gogo. We found the place in the yard that had obviously been used by gogo and watched in amazement as the four foot high flames engulfed our garbage. We then took “the things that don’t burn”, such as plastic and tin, to the end of the road where everyone dumps their garbage. It was very difficult to dump our garbage on the side of the road, but it is the town dump, and everyone we asked said that was the place to put it. We did our best to cover up our mound with dirt, leaves and rocks from our yard, as it seemed that others had done before us. Ma claims that the village used to have a trash pick-up program, but that it suddenly stopped years ago and since then everyone began dumping their garbage in the various open spaces in the village. The various dumps are not a pretty sight, but at least the villagers are trying to contain their garbage in specific locations. We will continue to brainstorm and research alternatives to this means of trash removal, and maybe we can encourage the government to reinstate the pick-up program and start a recycling program. Who knows what will happen, but it’s always good to dream big.