We Meant Well

Last week I attended a Helping Hands service project. I had never been involved with one before, but I guess the church does them all the time when there are natural disasters and stuff. If I understood correctly it was a huge project. Members all over Brazil were cleaning and painting public schools. Our ward and another one were assigned to a school not too far from our house.

When they handed me the putty knife I thought I would be patching holes, but I actually spent most of the time scraping gum off the bottom of desks and chairs. I didn’t really mind. In the long run, I think it was more interesting. A lady that speaks quite a bit of English told me that they give a medicine to the school kids in a gum/candy form. It must not taste too good because I think that was actually most of what I was scraping off the bottom of the desks.

While we were cleaning the desks, the paint crew came in. The just moved all the desks to the middle, took a few essays off the wall, and brought out the paint brushes which looked very much like the end of a broom to me. They were only painting the bottom half of the room. I guess that makes sense, from a functional point of view, because that is the only part of the wall that gets much wear. From an aesthetic point of view, it wasn’t that great of a plan because the paint wasn’t quite the same shade of white. But really, that point was minor.

The paint they were using smelled more like thinner than paint and it was very runny. With the broom like brushes you can imagine the drips and drops that were flying everywhere. The crew was mostly made up of men and boys and I really don’t think they thought about the drips and drops. They were just there to paint. When the paint crew moved on, I grabbed a rag and started wiping up drips. The one good thing about thin paint is that it cleans up easily. I didn’t even have to get any paint remover or thinner to get it off things. But I did wonder how long that paint was going to last on the walls.

After that was done, somebody handed me a small paintbrush and some of the smelliest, stickiest paint I have ever worked with. Three of us were supposed to paint the metal bars on the gate of the school red, yellow, and green. I had the red and two Mutual age kids had the other two colors. We were trying to work around each other keeping track which bar was supposed to be red, which was green, which was yellow. I sensed early on that this was not a place that I was going to be proud of my work. I ditched out of there as soon as another Mutual age girl came along. I think she wanted to paint with her friends anyway.

Then I got on the scrub team. The women there that day really knew how to scrub. I don’t know how long it had been since those wooden desk/chairs had been scrubbed, but they were getting the scrubbing of their lives that day. Those ladies were intent on getting all the writing off them. I don't even know what kind of cleaner we were using, but if you ever want to remove writing and the finish off furniture, I will try to find out.

It was fun to work with the people even though I couldn’t talk much and it was interesting to see what their schools are like. I sure didn't see much in the way of supplies or equipment and teachers' desks were a far cry from what I've seen in our schools. They weren't that great to start with and now there is a good chance they won't be able to get their drawers open...ever again. That bright yellow oil based paint they were putting on them is seriously sticky stuff.

This project probably turned out just fine, but let's just say I hope we did more good than harm and I hope the church doesn't get sued.