Confessions from a Dorm Chapter 6

Breakfast duty only covered two hours out of my three hour requirement. In the afternoon after lunch, Papa Celes gave me the job of ‘pilas’. It meant that I swept and mopped, dusted and organized the washroom behind the kitchen. 


It was dark and only a small door to a back hallway allowed some slits of sunlight in. I missed the sunlight and as ever, I was alone. Pilas was a solo job. I had much time to think. 

Sometimes a few internos passed by to climb down to the carpentry room that was in the sunken level beneath the washroom. Behind the washroom to the right was a storage space where extra mattresses were piled up higher than a house and covered with silver and blue tarps. Eventually, my friends and I would use it as the scene for out ‘photo shoots’. 

Here is one of me posing as ‘Rapunzel’ as some of my friends called me. All this I cleaned. I had little direction from Papa Celes when I began. It felt overwhelming at first, I didn't know where to start! I wished he could have given me a list to follow. I rememberd Booker T. Washington when he was made to clean an old room in order to be accepted into a school. He managed to impress with his cleaning skills and I hoped to do the same. Only, Papa Celes wasn't much for feedback. It was difficult to know if he was pleased by your work or not so I tried to do a good job. I swept until I reached the patio that ran along in front of the kitchen and cafeteria. It formed a large L-shape around the corner of the building. 

Sometimes I had someone to talk through the kitchen window like the girls working in the kitchen or in dishwashing. Elizabet who was usually chosen for Dinner duty could quarter chickens expertly. No one could beat her. She was that good. When I had done 2 she had already done 5.

As I swept the patio many times in silence I often had to remind myself that while I wasn’t feeling as if this small contribution was something, sometimes the most insignificant job could serve a greater purpose. If nobody swept the area, there would be more work for those cleaning inside the facility.

You had to learn patience on this job. Sometimes, the patio had been already half-swept when gushing circular wind currents spread the dust and leaves! Even though I knew I had swept, I couldn't leave it like that. Papa Celes might not believe me. I could already picture his impassive face as I explained. It was better to simply begin all over again. All that work for nothing? Patience had never been one of my virtues.

Listening to many of the courses inspired me as I meditated on them while I swept. A part of me couldn’t wait to get back home and share with my friends and family about the Biblical truths that I had never seen before. I wanted to go out and do some greater good for the world, whatever that meant. What am I doing here? I should be out there doing something useful! My patience didn’t always win. But one day as I was complaining about this to God, he allowed me to see something. In my mind I saw a cartoon image of a cartoon figure in running position. He was moving his feet so fast that all you could see were circles where his feet should have been. But as I looked closely, I noticed that he wasn’t going anywhere. The picture seemed to fade out and I was able to see a large hand that held the caricature from the hood of a sweater, pinching it between the hand’s thumb and pointer finger. I suddenly realized what God was telling me.

“That’s you. You’re trying so hard to run. But you are not going to get anywhere because look, I’m holding you back. It’s not your time yet. When it’s time, then I’ll let you go.” It wasn’t an audible voice. I was just able to sense a soft voice in my mind as if it had been my conscience.  But the message had gotten through. Loud & Clear. I needed to be patient and wait until God said, “Go.”