Painting My Room!

I am not sure if all of my blog readers know my living situation. So, before I begin this story let me explain. I live with 3 other people. Chelsea is the other volunteer currently serving with Mustard Seed, Pravi is Fr. Gregory's nephew and a student at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, and then there is Mikey. Mikey is head of security for Mustard Seed. He used to live in a house on the compund here at Sophie's Place, but the house was washed away during Tropical Storm Gustav. So...now he lives with us in the long-term volunteer quarters. For the most part he keeps to himself. He always says hello when he passes through the living room, but thats the most we see of him usually. At this point I am sure you are all wondering what Mikey has to do with me painting my room. Well, there is one thing about Mikey that can be intimidating for new volunteers- Mikey speaks the most dificult to understand Jamaican English anyone could ever imagine! Even Jamaicans cannot understand him sometimes! Anyway, last Friday morning I saw Mikey and he said something to me. As is usually the case, I could only understand about 1/3 of the question he asked. I knew he was asking me about painting and I knew he was telling me he wanted to paint his room and Chelsea had told him I wanted to paint my room too. So I just sort of said "oh ok yea, sounds good Mikey." Shortly after I realized I had at the very least agreed to paint SOMETHING the next day. I wasn't sure if it was going to be my room, his room, or both and I was definitely unsure where the paint was going to come from! I woke up the next morning and could here Mikey in his room moving stuff around and smelled the distinct aroma of fresh paint. He heard me come out of my room and into the kitchen and he popped open his door and said something about painting. So I told him once I was done with my breakfast I would be ready. Although, I still wasn't sure WHAT I would be ready for. Well I ate my cereal and in the mean time Mikey had gone downstairs. As I put my bowl in the sink he walked through the door with some blue paint! He handed it to me and told me to wait one second. He went into his room and came back out carrying a roller. He told me to put whatever I had left back in his room when I was done. So, just to make sure I asked him if the paint he just gave me was for my room and sure enough he said "yea mon!" So, I went into my room and moved all the furniture as far away from the walls as possible and started painting! Pravi woke up and walked into my room with a confused look and asked "what are you doing?!" "Painting my room!" I responded. He just started laughing. In the end I had a newly painted room. It is now light blue as opposed to dark and dreary dark blue it was before. I still am not entirely sure where Mikey got the paint, but I don't ask questions because I won't understand the answer anyway! So much for moving to a country where they speak my language! The language barrier definitely still exists...trust me!