Sounds like a lame superhero, doesn’t it? 2×4 Man… Wonder what his powers are.
Well, 2×4 man is a real person, not a comic book reject, and he’s pretty awesome. I never found out his name (although not for lack of trying) but he had a major influence on my time in Nepal.
Last week my team made cinderblocks to help add a Sunday School wing to a local church. It’s an interesting process: first, dirt is sifted through a screen to make it as fine as possible, mixed with sand and cement to form concrete, and then that concrete is dumped into a press that makes one block at a time and takes three people to operate efficiently. The finished cinderblocks sit and dry for two weeks before they can be used.
I was stationed at the screen, sifting dirt that my teammates brought in from outside. It was here that I had my first encounter with 2×4 man. While I scooped up the dirt with a shovel, he pounded the large chunks into small pieces with – you guessed it – a 2×4. It was dull, repetitive work, and while I got to stay standing, my new friend had to squat or kneel on the cement floor.
Since we worked in the same small vicinity next to each other for a few hours a day, I wanted to make conversation but that wasn’t possible. He spoke no English and I no Nepali, but the lack of conversation did not mean a lack of communication. Every once in a while he would make a hand gesture to indicate that we needed to switch places around the dirt pile, or affirm my question of “Good?” With a nod.
There was something I noticed about 2×4 man: he never stopped smiling. He had an ear-to-ear grin when he greeted us each day, was as happy as can be while pounding dirt for hours, and he just laughed when I accidentally dumped a bunch of dirt on him. Nothing could kill this guy’s mood.
You know what they say – attitudes are contagious, good or bad. My hours I spent shoveling dirt until my feet were gross and my hands were blistered flew by, because it’s easy to feel joy when you’re around joyful people.
We could all stand to be a little more like 2×4 Man.
