What do you think?
Friday, January 25th, 2008Today I want to start sharing with you some of the “struggles” at the orphanage. By that, I mean the kinds of things that go on that I don’t think would happen in a similar environment in the Western world. Some of it is cultural for sure, but other things are just a function of the situation.
The floor at the orphanage is dirty. There is no other word to describe it. They have a few dogs that do all sorts of unspeakable things on it (including the one that is currently in heat). The kids are always eating in the living room and spilling things, leaving crumbs and the like for the next guy to find.
It gets cleaned each day, but “clean” seems to have a very different definition. It isn’t cleaned with soap - ever. Usually just a broom, and on a good day, a vacuum cleaner. From my perspective with 25 boys living in the same space, that really isn’t acceptable. It is a ripe breeding ground for all sorts of things to get passed around.
And yet, Josh and I have tried to suggest real cleaning (like with bleach) but it seems to fall on deaf ears. There are a bunch of excuses for why bleach isn’t appropriate. I wish I understood this issue better. I suspect that it is cultural, because it is the same way at my school. The school is so dirty, it would have caused the custodial staff from the school I taught at in America to blush. Each day the kids sweep and mop the floors, but it really just amounts to pushing the dirt to a different corner, and using water to help. Soap isn’t part of the process! I know I’m not alone in this. Most of my friends report similar practices at their schools too.
So, when it comes to the orphanage, health is a big concern. The kids suffer from a lot of infections that are easily spread in communal living. It seems like this could be managed a bit better. Just this week, the dog bled all over the floor since she’s in heat…and the solution seemed to be using tissue to wipe it up!! Josh had the day off, so he went to buy some bleach and cleaned the floor….probably the second time in a year that the floor has been cleaned like that…but then the dog came back inside and bled everywhere again!
It isn’t our job to tell the staff there how to do things better, in fact that’s kind of taboo in Korea to begin with, so what do you think about it? What would you do?
Posted by 오민 (Austin) in Austin's Orphanage |
January 26th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Wow that is a really tough one. On the one hand, I really think that a lot of our “clean” habits as Westerners aren’t necessarily all that cleaner than habits in other countries. I think for a lot of things, we just have the “EW EW EW” factor that’s hardwired into us.
But on the other hand, I don’t think that it is just a Western hangup to believe a floor would be cleaner with some water and bleach. It really would be, especially if the dogs are defecating on it, or bleeding like the dog in heat.
Maybe we are just germ/clean obsessed. After all, there’s lots of talk about that being one of the main causes of the “superbug”. We kill everything, so the bacteria has to evolve to survive, but because we kill everything, we’re also less immune to the small bacterias, and then the superbug comes along and it’s like overkill.
Anyway, not quite the topic XD
I guess, maybe the only thing you can do is simply do it yourself? If you think it should be done, but as part of their culture and upbringing they really think it’s unnecessary, then … there isn’t much else you can do except simply do it yourself. I don’t think they would find it too insulting (though they may think “Oh, it’s not GOOD ENOUGH for them e_e”), or at the very least it would perhaps be LESS insulting?
January 26th, 2008 at 6:40 am
I assume these floors are the typical vinyl (linolium) flooring that isn’t glued down, just rolled out over the cement (so don’t worry too much about what is _under_ that flooring that you are going to clean so well). I agree with Taliana that we Westerners are way too germphobic. But I also think that Pasteur did us all a dis-service with his germ theory anyway (and that too is another topic).
You are kind of stuck, unfortunately. You can do it yourself or live with it.
Good luck.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:22 am
I’m afraid you’re gonna have to do it yourself. You’ll be a shining example and hopefully your cleanliness rubs off on others. (Sorry for the puns, I couldn’t help it!)
January 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I’m not sure it’s simply cultural that soap isn’t used. I work at a private language academy/학원, and there we have a cleaning lady who seems to thoroughly clean everything, every day. She mops the floor with what looks like soap and water, and cleans all the desks with soap, too. That place is clean!
Our school isn’t mandatory for anyone. Parents bring their kids in to have them tested, to talk to the director, and then decide if our 학원 is right for them. I assume having dirty floors would influence the parents’ decision negatively, so that is probably why the lady is told how thoroughly she must clean our academy.
Children in public schools and children’s homes/orphanages don’t have a choice; they can’t vote with their feet if the cleanliness isn’t to their liking. Sure, parents visit their kids in school on occasion, but they don’t have to be in school every day like their children.
Schools in Canada that I did my practice teaching in were sometimes a little dirtier than they should have been, but I attribute that to the lack of a proper number of custodians due to government budget cutbacks. But even in Canada, kids are, in many ways, “married” to their allocated school. Other government institutions are kept much cleaner.
Anyway, as seems to be becoming usual, I don’t know where I’m going with all this. I think I’m trying to argue that this situation may not be so much cultural, as it is tied to social status and power relations. Either way, thanks for getting this discussion started, Austin!