Painting in a Sauna

January 22, 2015

As we opened the temple doors this morning, the wave of heat and humidity hit us like a ton of bricks.  We found out that one of the major air conditioning units had gone out overnight.  You could hardly breathe and it was a bit stifling.  Everyone on my crew kept saying to me, “We need to get the air conditioning on.”  That’s when we found out it was going to be awhile.  So, bite the bullet and get to work.  Back to the Veil Hall teach layer #3 for that finish, work for a while with those down low until I felt comfortable leaving them, then climb three levels of scaffold and the additional ladder to reach the top where the heat level is at least 10-20 degrees warmer than down on the floor.  Within 30 minutes it looked like I had just stepped out of the shower in my whites, or at least it felt that way.  Meanwhile the local men were sweating but didn’t seem as uncomfortable as the rest of us.

As we worked different levels, I fought trying to keep the red paint flakes out of my product that were falling from the scaffold every time someone moved (quality equipment).  Trowel some plaster, pick out the red flakes…since I’m thinking red dots don’t really go with a metallic ivory waterfall finish.  At some time I looked over at Hanna who was working the lower scaffold and her butt was pink (red paint that obviously isn’t so cured out + sweat on white pants creates pink.  I was pretty sure at that point that mine looked the same.  I am amazed at how well Hanna teaches and the patience she has and the positive encouragement she constantly gives until the trainees get it right.  She herself, had never done this finish until two weeks ago when we did our “training job” at Shelly Evan’s house.  She is so good!  I’m grateful she was willing to take the semester off from school to come on our two temple projects this spring

Al little later I told Agnovi (I’ve been working on pronouncing his name right all week), from Togo and now a resident of Ghana, that we needed some music and he hummed/sung hymns while we sweated and worked.  I was quite overcome when “How Great Thou Art” became the next rendition.  Many of these Ghana men take a bus up to two hours away to work with us, without pay (which I’m going to change before we leave here), sweating all day to work in the temple and learn with us.  I don’t know if I would have that same dedication if the roles were reversed.

Near the end of the day as I was finishing out the very last super high corner, straddling the extension ladder and the scaffold while I worked (only way to reach this space), I looked down to see Oliver staring at me.  I asked what he was looking at and he replied, “You are so strong!”  Talking to some of the men earlier, they said the women in their countries would not do what I do…that they like to sit and talk and shop, not climb.

Mishaps of the day…  Oliver turned around to hand me some tools this morning, as I was higher than him, and accidentally knocked my bucket off the third level of scaffold complete with tools and product.  I must say I held my breath as it tumbled down 20 plus feet to the ground.  Hanna happened to be right near the landing and reported that the product which of course splattered, landed on the drop cloth and on the baseboard paper and tape, but not one drop hit our walls…almost like an invisible shield was protecting them.  I’m pretty sure we had heavenly help on that one.

Good news is we finished the veil hall today, untaped and pulled down the scaffold (which is in a very tight space).  As Camron was three levels up and pulled off the end to hand it down, a 6” metal fitting (or basically a heavy metal pipe), which he didn’t know was separate, fell…again three levels up and hit our walls, making three nice places that need to be mended.  Good news, however is it was a tender mercy because if it had fallen on the other side, chances are it could have cracked the huge stained glass window going into the Celestial Room.  Sometimes we forget to see the tender mercies amongst  the set backs…but Stanley pointed this out to me immediately.  I did have the thought before this project started that we would have some walls that needed to be mended, mostly because we need to teach the people how to care for their new walls.  I guess that means they will get some practice and all is well.

Samwell wanted to teach us how to Salsa Dance tonight…to be continued tomorrow…

Alicyn