The Shack Experience – Day #7 Who Knew Cleaning Could be so FUN!

The Shack Work Day #7Today was more of a cool down day, after the hard day working in the field. The students needed to recover both physically and emotionally. We needed to finish up a project, unloading rocks from the truck and placing them in an area of the yard. This took them just a little over an hour to do. After a short break, we headed over to a nursing home to help out with some cleaning. When we got there the students were really impressed by how nice the building was. The construction of it was completed this past February 2009 and was already full of older people. The oldest person there is 102 years old! They guessed her age by talking to the 80 year old daughter.This nursing home was set up for neglected and abused older people because they still deserve the best care. One of the men in there went into the hospital a few years ago. His wife came in and got him to sign a few hospital papers. In fact, what he really signed was his divorce papers and the rights to everything he owns. Juan, the man who runs the home, picked him up from the police station, because that is where the hospital took him when he didn’t pay the bills. Today he is happy in the nursing home but still doesn’t understand what happened to him that day.The students worked hard for three hours cleaning the nursing home. Everything was dusty, which is the norm for the Baja, so they spent most of the day dusting. They cleaned windows, doors, sky lights, fans and floors and did a great gob! During all this, they also spent time trying to socialize with the residence, even through there was a language barrier. I am sure the older folks loved watching the young spry Americanos work in front of them. A few of them knew a little bit of English and were always trying to give them tips on how to do the job.All of the students loved being there and wanted to come back again. Melissa even said that they need to spend less time in front of their computers and spend more time helping there. I wish I got that statement on video! The afternoon was put aside for them to learn how to wash clothes on a washboard, which is the most common way of doing laundry around here. I hear they saved up and got some marshmallows to have a Fiesta tonight. I am looking forward to that!~Brett Dyrland, School of Leadership Staff Member