I was in Nicaragua visiting a mission dedicated to creating economic opportunities for the people. The people would leave their homes at 5:00 am in the morning and go out into the fields or to other jobs. By going early, they could take advantage of the early morning cool air and be finished by the heat of mid-afternoon. Whether it was cutting cane or painting houses, I would follow along and attempt to keep up and even help. While to a rested observer, they might seem to be slow, I found that it was quite difficult to keep up with them for very long. I concluded that contrary to popular opinion among the observers, these people were not lazy. They just knew how to survive over time in the heat.
One day, I decided to help with a painting project. At mid afternoon, the boss called quitting time. The others went off to a fence or picked up a board and began pressing the paint from the brushes. But what seemed peculiar to me was that they didn’t finish cleaning the brushes by washing them out.
Thinking I would set a good example, I poured some water from a bucket on the brush to completely clean it. Everyone seemed to notice at once.
“Senor, your brush is fine. You do not need to clean it more.” The boss man said.
“Oh. It is better for the brush if it is thoroughly cleaned.” I explained. I continued the pressing out process and reached for the water again. Several men flinched.
“Senor, we do not use water on the paint brushes.”
I couldn’t help myself and poured only the tiniest amount on the brush. They all looked dismayed and disgusted with me. I could tell something was wrong. After a little more pressing of the brush, I decided that it was clean enough. I wrapped it up in a banana leaf and laid it with the other brushes. Rather than argue now, I would discuss this with John, the mission leader, so that I could learn how to explain to these ignorant people why washing out the brushes was better.
“You know,” I said to John later. “These people don’t know how to take care of their tools.” I explained how they not only refused to wash out their brushes, but they were also mad at me for having done so.
John looked at me and smiled. Not directly answering me, he said, “As you know, every morning the men get up and go to work at 5:00am. What you may not know is that the women clean up and then gathering buckets, barrels, pots and pans walk about two miles up to the spring to get water. If they are lucky, the spring is full and not too much spills on the way back, they only need to make one trip. Obviously there is none to waste. If some one spills water or some unusual need arises, one of the men or women will have to make that same four mile round trip to get more so no one will go thirsty.”
I thought about the men’s reaction in light of that piece of information. Cleaning a paint brush with enough water to get it clean could add two hours of hard labor to someone in the village. It was a nicety they couldn’t really afford. I had already learned that they weren’t lazy. Now I realized that that they weren’t stupid, either.
But I had some things to learn.