As part of the makeover team, we are responsible for
painting and furnishing the apartment.
In our particular town of China, I haven’t yet seen any of my favorite
stores like Home Goods, Pier One, Home Depot or Pottery Barn. So, instead of browsing we are
bartering. This morning we have a
mission: find a lumber store. Once
there, barter on price and call our contact to translate the delivery
information. It sounds simple.
One of our team had previously visited the store with our
contact to see the selection; yet, he traveled on the city bus and did not
really have a great sense of the store’s location. This morning we were on foot. The streets look a lot different at street
level. We had a bit of a walk, but I got
us to the first reference point without any trouble, but then we had to call
the contact for further details. It was
another 15-20 minutes before we found the store, but the contact, to our
relief, had given us great directions.
Four Americans with backpacks nearly crowded the small store and
absolutely caught the attention of passers-by.
We needed to find the right wood, determine an affordable price, barter,
then call our contact for translation of delivery. However, not everyone on the team understood
the process, so unnecessary calls were made and wordy communication obfuscated
critical questions.
(too bad we didn’t have the google translate text to speech feature!)
We left the store to make our calls, clarify our plan and
refocus. It was a tense time, especially
for my single cup of coffee morning.
However, when we returned to the store to purchase the lumber, there was
a new face. A little round, pale, smooth
Chinese face looked at quickly before returning his focus the tiny baby kitty
he was chasing. I love kids, but have
enjoyed not having an entirely kid centered ministry this month, but this
little boy’s presence made my day. When
I waved at him to come near be seemed confused.
But he warmed up and I chased him down the 10 foot store center,
mimicked his sounds and obstructed his path whenever I could (I even took a
piece of linoleum and made it a bridge with some paint buckets for him to go
under). He was precious and the 30
minutes or so that I got to play with him was such a blessing. He was the sunshine in my cloudy morning. He was a delightful little butterball.
I left the store in a much better mood than I had entered
and was eager to have a short day so as to relax and plan our building
projects; it had already been nearly 3 hours.
We got a taxi with little wait and were quickly taken to the apartment,
where the driver gave us a half price fair!
It was a wonderful and filled me with gratitude for the stranger. The wood delivery was on time, but several
helpers short. A single man in a small
pickup truck stood by as the four of us unloaded the 7, 8×4 sheets of
wood. Eight feet looks a lot longer when
you aren’t looking at it in lumber store piles.
That “bit larger” meant that the wood could not be transported to the 10th
floor apartment by elevator…It is the 4th hour of this mission, and
did I mention I only had one cup of coffee?
Austin and I volunteer to carry up the first sheet, to navigate the 20
flights of stairs and small corners. We
got to the first floor without too much hassle; but then the stairs narrowed. It was a great effort, but without
victory. We reversed and set the wood
with the other 6 leaning against the wall in the lobby, awaiting application.
We realized the full sheets could not fit in the elevator,
nor could we realistically carry all 7 up the stairs. We needed to cut them. But we hadn’t anticipated the problem and
left the saw to purchase later. The boys
left for town for find an electric saw while we girls measured and marked. As we drafted, I took advantage of the time
and started our clothes in the newly installed washing machine. I took a gamble on the settings since all the
buttons are in Chinese, and pushed play (literally). Jenna
and I carried the wood from the lobby to a sunny patio spot and began drafting
our projects: 2 bench seats, 2 craft
tables, and some shelves. It became
obvious that we were more economical with the wood than we had theorized. As we marked the sides, top, tables, etc, the
wind blew straight through me. It was
harsh even in the sun (I later found out that by this time last year this city
had already gotten snow!). The boys
showed up with a saw and shortly after we were able to start cutting.
Four white people listening to music, moving large sheets of
wood, using an electric saw, creates quite a scene. People starred
at us; some even came so close as to be involved in the project, but just
starred. We are probably the talk of the
apartment association. It took about an
hour to move, cut, and set aside the
wood to take up in the elevator. Despite
the cold, the defeated feeling we had when the wood was delivered, and the
gawking crowd, we cut wood for 2 craft tables, 1 dining table, and
shelves. We marked the components for 2
bench seat and a second set of shelves.
To top it off, when we finished unloading the wood into the apartment
the clothes had finished washing and were ready to hang.
It was a surprisingly productive day!
