of roofs and rain, or, a wet bedroom

look: theres no roof. yes, that's where my room is.

i'm not sure if this is going to work because everything on this website is in some sort of asian script as opposed to good ol' american english. i'll just try and make due. if it doesn't work, i guess you'll never know, though.

the roof of the jvi house here in the marshall islands has had problems for a long time. for starters, the house is the oldest building on the assumption church and school grounds. it was renovated about 20 years ago but is in a sad state of disrepair now. the only thing that is a major problem is the roof. when it is raining outside, well, it is also raining inside. sometimes it is even raining inside long after the gray clouds have moved on. the problem is isolated to the kitchen/dining room area. while this is a problem when you're trying to eat a meal, it is certainly better than leaks above anyone's bed. also, note that the attic was until recently home to an undetermined number of rats, whose droppings the water percolated through before coming through the cieling. so we're not just talking about water, we're talking about brown rat poop water.

after about a year of requesting help with this problem, the cavalry finally arrived on wednesday in the form of samuel, the maintenance guy. he started out by ripping off a section of the tin roof. what section you ask? naturally the corner of the house that is home to my bedroom. nobody knew he was going to start that day, so i didn't put anything away or make any efforts to perserve things. in the process of removing the existing roof, mass quantities of bits of rotten wood and who knows what else came to litter my bed, chair, desk, and floor. fair enough, not a big problem. messes are a part of fixing things.

the real problem started when samuel hadn't put the new roof on yet and it started to rain. there was brown water running down the walls of my room, dripping from the middle and pooling on the floor, in addition to being absorbed into my mattress. luckily i was able to put some tarps on my bed and carefully stow important documents and belongings inside my big dresser/shelf thing that kept everything dry. there was no real damage, i just have a mess on my hands.

so there was no roof for a few days. relax, there is a roof now. they aren't done working on it but the gaping maw that was over my room has been covered for a day or two. in the meantime i am sleeping at the rectory next door. father rich, the normal resident, is on vacation but will be back this week. he doesn't know i'm staying there. i "borrowed" a few books from his shelves. don't tell him.

i tried to put up a picture of the exposed beams hanging over my room but i can't make heads or tails of this asian script. on the bright side, i have pictures online! check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronzeleske

*addendum: i put the picture up now!

please hold still, or, i give free haircuts

thursday is my night to cook. since our cupboards were bare of just about all the foods we usually eat (we were even out of the basic elements of food; we drank all the soy sauce and ate all the tarragon!*), it was spaghetti for dinner. i don’t have a problem with spaghetti. it is a simple meal. i set the pot to boil on the stove and was sitting at the kitchen table playing guitar when there was a knock at the door. six small island boys were there asking for water. the kids were from the neighborhood known as small island, which is right next to the church and school property where we live, stop by our house all the time to play with our blocks, read out children’s book and drink our water. i always try to be welcoming to them but sometimes its hard because when it rains small island children, it pours small island children. little voices constantly calling “water? water?” very easily distract from reading. most of the boys who were now at the door just wanted water but there was one who asked if i could give him a haircut. he had clippers and there is an outlet right outside our porch. at first i thought, “what? why is he asking me to cut his hair?” but then i shrugged and said “sure!” i’ve cut my own hair a couple times with clippers and helped cut my old housemate patrick’s hair a few times last year. the boy had shaggy, curly black hair. he took off his shirt and i got down to business. he just wanted it all taken off, so that’s what i did. i even engaged in barbershop banter with him; asking his name, where he goes to school and what grade he was in. his name was eric. i sheared off all the hair and then took off the attachment to clean him up in the back and around the ears. he kept looking down to watch the hair fall to the ground. i kept telling him to look up and hold still. “hold still, eric! hold still!” it wasn’t a bad haircut. i asked if anybody else wanted a trim and another boy said he did, but only the bottom half of his head, like a little bowl cut. i said i would do it and added a nice twist, making the hair on the back of the bowl come down to a little V point. it was tricky to get the V balanced out because he kept squirming around. he might never know about that little flourish, but then again it could just change his life. when i was done with them i went into the house and brought out a mirror so they could see. both eric and the other boy smiled approvingly.
when the boys were leaving i told them to tell all their friends that i would give free haircuts on saturday. i hope that promise doesn’t come back to bite me. i could easily see all of small island lined up outside the house waiting for a trim.



*10 points if you can name the source of that quote