A Trip Through the Roof

      It's interesting, the things that motivate me to write a new blog. Many times within the past... month I have felt that motivation. There was the boat trip to Walung, Week of Prayer, Spirit Week, The Weather Channel, our Rad Reading Race, finals for third quarter and the party, some yard cleaning with machetes, getting Linux in the lab, and this week (Spring Break), to name many of them. Did I ever mention when I fell through the roof?

      For most of these, not always right after they happened, I had plans write about them. The biggest problem is that when I came to having time for writing I couldn't find the right words to start. I have to have a good way to start the blog – whether you thought any were is a different conversation. The beginning is what I spend the most thinking on. This does seem absurd. After all, I'm simply recounting events that could be considered highlights of my life over here. Shouldn't be that hard, right? In my mind, though, I guess you could say that it's just the same as a first impression: for best results, it has to be great.

      I've been thinking, even more so, this whole week that I need to write. Not worrying about school (per se), and I have the time. I guess I can't always wait for that perfect start.

      I never mentioned that the old principal transferred to the high school. Starting at the beginning of third quarter (January), the Pastor of the church became a sort of stand-in, interim principal. He has made himself the Manager, though, not the principal. Due to the original plan of eventually finding a principal, this is what he prefers. Then the GMM (Guam Micronesia Mission) said to make Iris the head teacher. Things have changed even more recently, and now there won't be a principal anymore, but the job will be split up among a church board and the head teacher.

      Since the beginning of third quarter, and the step-in of the pastor, things have started getting done faster. Part of the old building was demolished (two classrooms), a cover for the “breeze way” built, the tearing out of termite-infested bookshelves and various other things, and the needed reorganizing of the office (including the records, which were in a bad state). Basically, things are getting done instead of sitting stagnant somewhere, whether physically or mentally. I'm not trying to say that the principal was bad. In fact, he is really effecting the HS for the better.

      It was at the demolishing of the two classrooms that I had quite an experience. We were taking it apart, top down, salvaging what we could; tin roofing, timber, nails (to be salvaged later), light fixtures, and whatever else could be saved. The ceiling and walls were simply quarter-inch (guessing here) plywood. The ceiling boards were nailed into a checkerboard of 2x2's. Then the tresses on top of that, which were connected to each other with more 2x2's. The tin roofing was nailed onto these 2x2's. I hope I'm drawing a good picture.

      I wasn't part of the roof-stripping crew. I didn't really feel up to pulling out nails from tin on a shaky roof in flip-flops. However, half of the guys on the roof did and the other half just went without shoes. Wow. I sat along the wall of my apartment to get pictures. Once that crew was about done, I decided it was my turn to help out. I set to pulling the tress-connecting 2x2's up, and getting them to the ground. I was dual-wielding hammers for this.

      Due to the roof not being a choice place to walk – Did I mention that almost 100% of the plywood in the classrooms was infested? – I had to one-foot-in-front-of-the-other across the tresses. When I came to a 2x2 I had to put both feet on one side. It was in the midst of doing one of these maneuvers that the fun started.

      It's an interesting feeling, knowing you are about to fall, and not being able to do anything about it. I had just put my left foot on the other side of the tress, and before I could settle by balance, I felt myself going to the right. I managed to hook my heel on the top (remember, I'm still in flip-flops), and my hands while still holding a hammer in each. To the onlooker, I fell sideways looking like a hinge. My body went right into the only open rectangle in the ceiling, with my feet and hands still on the tress. I folded in half.

      I knew I had a pretty firm grip, so I checked myself and let the hammers fall away first. Then I got, I think, only one of my flip-flops off. Looking around below for options to step/drop on, I found a desk stacked with papers and books a couple feet away. With a complete grip on the tress, I lowered myself onto the desk.

      When I realized that I had saved myself from falling ten feet, back first, onto concrete, I also recognized the huge amount of adrenaline pumping through me. “WHOO! WHOA! WHOOOOO. WHOOO. WHOA!” and many more of those. It's hard to explain the feeling, but with all that adrenaline, and the close call, I had to get that out. Once most of that had gone, I could a tingling on my back, so I pulled up my shirt for someone. I had close to a foot-long scratch down the center and a shorter, deeper one on the right. Oh, and my shirt received dime-sized hole – poor shirt.

      After getting cleaned up by the pastor with a part-local concoction (rubbing alcohol, and a local herb, which they tell me helps heal things faster), I wanted to get back into the work. They really wanted me to rest and take a break. They like to rotate workers. They do this for the people working to rest, not to give everyone a chance. I wasn't done, though. Now they were done with the roof, so we were on to various other things at once, one being tearing down the plywood on the ceiling and walls. As a side note, there were termites everywhere, and the frogs were loving it.

      I had a crowbar, and was finally getting into the work when the thing I was being so careful to prevent happened: a nail in the foot. Right in the heel. I'd say it went in anywhere from a quarter to half inch. I was actually pretty embarrassed by that happening, so I sneakily escaped. It helped that people were still telling me to rest. Cleaned that one off myself, and put on a band-aid that quickly fell off. I reluctantly decided that I was done helping on that project.

      I fully expect this to be a story always worth retelling. However, I have to make sure and not build up expectations when I say, “I fell through a roof.” Yes, I did, but sadly it wasn't anything like you were hoping for, was it? You might have imagined me walking along a roof and a weak section giving out. I plummet thirty – you were really hoping for that. Instead, making it more (or less, depending on how crazy you are) exciting, I plummet only five feet, catching myself on a rafter with only one hand. I now hang twenty-five feet above open air and various classroom objects. My other arm is disabled from coming through the roof and the rafter is cracking. Then someone gets a ladder and I walk down.

      Bad ending to that one, too. (I can embellish later on, though). The truth is that the worst part about it was what my mind did and falling through two, very large spider-webs, with their very large spiders included. Still lame, I know.