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Costa Rica
Coming in first place with flying colors is Costa Rican brooms! Every day after tutoring we had to sweep the classrooms and on Fridays, we did a deep sweep of the entire school, so I had lots of time with Costa Rican brooms. Thankfully, Costa Rican brooms are the same as the brooms in the US. They are effective, efficient, and they get all of the dirt up the first time.
Interesting Fact: Costa Rican mops are quite interesting. It is very common to use a rag with a hole in the middle and drape it over the broom handle as a mop. It usually works quite well (as long as the rag is big enough), and is actually quite genius. Sometimes a few places would have the same mops as the US, but I only ever used the “broom with a rag” mop.
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Myanmar
An easy second in the Burmese broom. It’s a fantastic mixture of South African brooms and Costa Rican brooms. It has the shape of a South African broom, but it is not angled so it gives you good push and pull of the dirt. Sometimes I have seen places use brooms that are similar to Thai brooms but I have only ever used the one that I previously described so that is what I am going to rank on. I haven’t had to use it much, but I have been pleasantly surprised so far with the effectiveness of the Burmese brooms.
Interesting fact: I have yet to see a mop in this country, not convinced they exist here.
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South Africa
A definite third is the South African broom. The South African broom has a normal handle angled into a rectangular prism with bristles coming out the bottom. I used South African brooms quite a lot for cleaning our bungalow, the big hall, the kitchen, the patio, the ground outside, the braai pits, and pretty much everything you can sweep. The brooms are altogether pretty good but because of the angle and rectangle, it makes it very difficult to get at all the dirt you are trying to get. It has good push but no pull. If you push dirt into a corner, well you’ve hit a wall there. Pun not intended.
Interesting Fact: In some cases if was easier to hunch over continuously with a handheld brush and a dustpan to get all the dirt up rather than go about with a South African broom that just keeps pushing.
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Thailand
Bringing up the rear is very justly, Thailand. Thailand brooms are the absolute worst. We had to use them a lot at our first Thailand ministry where we did construction. When we first walked into the building, we swept. Then we sanded and swept again and again and again. Then we painted and swept some more. I spent a lot of time with these brooms sadly. Thai brooms are short. Like half of the height of a normal broom. You have to bend over ever so slightly to reach the floor with the broom so it puts a great strain on your back constantly. The description of the broom is kinda hard to explain. Its kinda like if you took a Chinese fan, attached it to the bottom of a stick, and replaced the paper with like 20 singular strands of bendable plastic bristles. They don’t get up much dirt so you have to sweep like 5 times to see any difference.
Interesting Fact: One day I discovered the Thai equivalent of a rake and it actually works surprisingly well considering it looks like those little cinnamon brooms that are popular around Halloween and Thanksgiving.
