SPRING CLEANING

Spring cleaning here is crazy! You wouldn't believe the messes these people can find...they soap sudded the window screens and wood paneling, which they do with a regular old broom as a scrub brush and a wad of plastic string as a sponge; fumigated old closets for termites with a tank of gasoline-smelling liquid that they spray on all the infected wood; swept the earth's dust that invades every crevice from corrugated tin roofs and wicker light covers; re-hangered striped stretch pants, Mayan skirts and mint green tutus; rolled posters from years of Central American theatre visits and attempts to advertise across country borders; and burned "useless" books and newspapers written in English that the theatre's library cannot use, many of which have either been eaten by those termites that should be plenty full and plump by now, or have made nice homes between bindings for the teensy weensy spiders' webs. The actors manage to fill 7 hours a day with this cleaning, though I think about 2 of those hours are actually spent re-analyzing the futbol game from the night before. The Teatro team had been playing in a field near the theater every evening, so I quickly learned the Spanish words for the positions and how to cuss at and direct the players so I can tell them exactly what the gringa without any soccer experience thinks of their "playing since they were fetuses" skills. P.S. Joel is a great player, and in each game scored at least 3 goals, many with the help of the fancy footwork of these ballet trained actors.

But I didn't much like this spring cleaning. I felt very useless as every time I asked to help, they said they had it all under control. Only Jack would give me things to organize once in a while, and that took me an hour or two and then I would be done and no one could think of anything else...or anything that was on the To Do list had to wait until another project wascompleted in order to start it. So I sat around a lot and pretend to be writing lists or chatting an important talk with someone who also had nothing to do. Thank god it all finished 2 weeks ago and i have been able to get back to some real work...if that's what you call hanging out in a tropical climate with a bunch of buddies, eating weirdly yummy food and not getting paid. We actually almost finished with 2 weeks of vacation, which I have spent catching up on things I've been meaning to do for myself as well as work for the theater. I got to sleep in a bit and cook some more grand dinners with my extra time, so that was a nice break before we get back into the theater season, which we will start with the Passion for Lent and Easter.