Pentecost Sunday afternoon

After mass, we walked down the hill to Joseph's "house". This day we walked in, and I had to use the bathroom; and I could not bite my tongue any longer. The place was absolutely filthy, and and just generally unlivable. As Kyle interjected as I yelled at Joseph, "it is worse than Appalachia"

I tried cleaning with what Joe had available, which was basically nothing. Some old dirty rags and some powder soap. So we walked down to the town looking for drinking glasses, toilet paper holder, wall hangers and a bucket. We did find the glasses and the toilet paper holder. The holder, was a bar around which you could put the tp. The owner of the shop told us that not once in the 20 some odd years that he had been there had anyone asked what that funny thing on the wall was. Which was a good thing because the owner himself had no idea what it was. He gave it to us for free. We also bought some more cloth ktangas to hang on the wall

We went back to Joe's apartment and started cleaning with hot water and powder soap. I sent Cadie and Jill an email asking for them to send cleaning supplies (ajax, sponges, windex etc). Also, I blew out Joe's electric tea kettle by making so much hot water (no hot water in this household!). Joe had also been making his green loose leaf tea (which I had sent from China in April) directly in the electric kettle. YUK! In the memorial tape, one of his students mentioned the tea, and how he had asked Joe what kind of tea it was. Joseph had told the students that he had picked it off the tree in his backyard. I guess that was an easier explanation than saying his mother had sent it from China.

During this time his next door neighbor came over to borrow something from Joseph. He had been paying her to clean house for him; I spoke seriously with her about the lack of cleanliness -but she did not speak english.

He wrote an email later to Cadie saying he did not understand why I was so upset, everything was fine. Later that night, and in his journals, he did admit that one morning he woke up and found a rat swimming in his sink waste bucket (no drains for the running water anywhere but the bathroom). He had to kill the rat by holding it under water with a broom stick.

The picture is of Joe's backyard. He had put a fence up the year before to try to keep some privacy, but it had fallen down. When I asked him where his garbage was he pointed to the door, and said just throw it out there. The chickens eat the organic, and once a month he would burn everything out back. This is how the whole village took care of their garbage!