Friday, February 10 Inexpensive solutions

During my stay here in Thionck-Essyl thus far, I’ve encountered a few things that were not quite as I wished them to be. In at least some of those cases, I was able to find an inexpensive solution. Here are a few examples.

1)

One day, as I attempted to grasp the handle of the front door of the house where we are staying, it came loose and fell to the floor. I looked at the mechanism and realized that the set screw on the handle that was designed to hold it in place had worked its way loose. All I needed to do was put the handle back where it was supposed to be and tighten the set screw. Ahh, but I had no screwdriver! I’m not much of a handyman, nor do I do well at improvising, but this time I found an idea that worked. I had a fingernail clippers, and the nail file that came with the clippers served adequately as a screwdriver. And now the door handle seems inclined to remain in place.

2)

My first couple of mornings here, I had to shave without a mirror. I tried to find one on Tuesday evening after our workshop ended, but the little shops apparently don’t sell things like mirrors, and the man who spreads his wares out in the town square had already packed up for the day. So the next day I went there a bit earlier in hopes that I would find something, even a very small mirror that would help me to see at least the part of my face I was trying to shave. The vendor’s French was limited, my Gusiilaay and Wolof are non-existent, so it took some time to explain what I was looking for. Once he thought he understood, he said he didn’t have any. But as I turned to leave, he called me back, then began rooting through a large cardboard box, finally pulling out what seemed to me to be a set of child’s toys: a comb, a brush, and a small hand mirror about three inches in diameter. I told him that would work, then asked him how much he wanted for it. His answer: 500 francs. I’ve been happily using the little mirror each morning since then, my problem resolved for only 85 cents. I haven’t found a use yet for the comb and brush, though.

3)
Our bathroom has a toilet, but no water system. It needs to be flushed with a bucket of water. One day I noticed that the seat was shifting. On closer examination, I discovered that there were two plastic cylinders that served as “bolts” to attach the plastic seat & cover to the porcelain bowl. Neither “bolt” had any obvious mechanism for holding it in place, and one had slipped out completely while the other was working its way in that direction. A minute or so, plus a bit of effort with no tools other than my hands, and the plastic cylinders were back in place, making the seat secure.

4)

There is a water filter in our house that David set up for us to use, but we have to draw the water to put in it from the well in the back yard. We get the water via a bucket on a rope that runs over a pulley, lowering the bucket about 60 feet into the well, then pulling it up hand over hand. We pour the water from the well bucket into a makeshift bucket that we use to transport the water into the house. We use that water to flush the toilet, wash our hands, wash dishes, and fill the water filter to get clean drinking water. It’s a good system, but there’s one complication. The bucket in the well has a hole in the side, so when I get it out of the well to pour the water into the makeshift bucket that will be carried into the house, water gets sprayed on the ground at the base of the well, creating mud, so that my flip flops become muddy.

The first time that I was the one to bring in water, I tracked mud all over the kitchen floor. So I decided that, the next time, I needed to leave my flip flops at the door. But that would mean walking on the floor in my bare feet, which I was not keen to do because, in this climate, there is always an accumulation of dust on the floor. I decided that what I really needed was a second pair of flip flops—a pair that I could wear inside the house, so that I could leave my dirty ones outside.

I walked to the town square, found a shop that sold shoes of various kinds, saw some flip flops there, and told the boy manning the store that I needed a pair. “What size?” he wanted to know. “I don’t know. Look at my feet and you tell me.” He hesitated a moment, then pronounced me a size 11 and proceeded to look for a pair of size-11 flip flops. When he had found one, I asked him how much they would cost me and was told “500 francs”. So I bought them.

Now I wear my new flip flops—which are a perfect fit, by the way—in the house and exchange them at the door for my outdoor pair, then go to the well, draw my water, come back to the house, step out of my wet and dirty pair and into my clean, dry pair and bring the water into the house. Once again, my problem had an 85-cent solution.