Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
New Apartment!
We've officially got a place in Yinchuan now. It's everyone's apartment, but we'll probably end up using it the most. It's got 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It's actually really nice. Of course when we went to go see it Saturday morning we discovered that it had not been touched for 3 years, and whoever left it 3 years ago did not clean. There were still cigarette butts in the ash tray, clothes on the floor, a balled up dish rag that had been left wet in the sink, etc. So, it took the 7 of us a good day to really get everything cleaned.
The funny thing was that we weren't allowed to throw away anything that the "owners" might possibly ever want to come back for. So now in the cupboards there are random clothes, an old computer moniter, about a dozen very dead plants, quite a few other things that no one in their right mind would keep, but we had to.
We cleaned with our Chinese liason, and we were all cringing quite a bit. If Chinese people mop, they don't sweep first. 3 years of China dust was just spread around the whole house with a wet 3 year old mop that was falling apart all over the place. They don't use soap either. Just water. every time someone else would sweep and then mop a floor, he would just walk right over it. There was nothing any of us could do, because he was helping and we appreciated it.
When I was little I used to make my mom coffee in the morning, but I didn't realize you were supposed to change the coffee grounds. I would just turn on the coffee maker and pour in water. So she would pretend to drink a cup of gross day old coffee until I went to school, and then she would make real coffee. She never said anything until I was in High School. Cleaning with him was just like that. That afternoon when he was gone, we got a lot more done.
The funny thing was that we weren't allowed to throw away anything that the "owners" might possibly ever want to come back for. So now in the cupboards there are random clothes, an old computer moniter, about a dozen very dead plants, quite a few other things that no one in their right mind would keep, but we had to.
We cleaned with our Chinese liason, and we were all cringing quite a bit. If Chinese people mop, they don't sweep first. 3 years of China dust was just spread around the whole house with a wet 3 year old mop that was falling apart all over the place. They don't use soap either. Just water. every time someone else would sweep and then mop a floor, he would just walk right over it. There was nothing any of us could do, because he was helping and we appreciated it.
When I was little I used to make my mom coffee in the morning, but I didn't realize you were supposed to change the coffee grounds. I would just turn on the coffee maker and pour in water. So she would pretend to drink a cup of gross day old coffee until I went to school, and then she would make real coffee. She never said anything until I was in High School. Cleaning with him was just like that. That afternoon when he was gone, we got a lot more done.
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