The Rainbow Wall

At times, my fifth grade students are my greatest teachers who educate me about their school procedures, such as the cleaning of our classroom.  The first week of school, they informed me that we were supposed to tidy up our classroom and that the principal would be checking.  So every student took the initiative to bring some rags that were cut from a variety of fabrics.  When they arrived to school one morning, they waved around their square tattered rags of every color imagined indicating that they were ready to scrub down the class.  Now, looking back at this moment, I burst into laughter because neither my students nor I foresaw the consequences that were about to take place from those cursed, colorful rags.

Extra Soapy Water

Before we started the cleaning frenzy, we examined our white walls that weren’t too bad.  We identified the areas that needed the most cleaning like the front bottom wall that looked like it had been rained on.  Not only did I want a clean class for my students, but I was hoping that we could impress the principal by having the cleanest class in the school.  So I got my students all pumped up to clean.  We filled a bucket with extremely soapy water and I released them to start dipping their rags into the water to scrub the walls or desks.  I was so immersed in taking pictures of this cleaning bonanza that I didn’t notice that my students hands were turning green, blue, red, orange, purple, etc.  They were so eager to clean that it also took them a few minutes to realize that their hands were slowly turning the color of their rags. 

 Oh Why me?

It wasn’t until I heard the students gasping “Uughhh Ohhhh” that I noticed the walls, desks and floors were now a rainbow of colors.   Apparently, their colorful rags started bleeding its dye when they dipped them into the soapy water and now the water was a bizarre color of paint.  I jumped on a stool, threw my arms out and screamed, “AHHH EVERYONE FREEZE!”  Everyone froze and with worried expressions we just stood in silence for a minute staring at the assortment of colors all over our once white walls.  I thought, Oh why me? So much for having the cleanest walls in the school!  Maybe it will come off!  Oh God, I hope the principal doesn’t kill me for ruining these walls.  What should I do? How much is white paint?

The Before and After

Finally, I wiped the horrid expression off my face.  “No problem! We can fix this,” I said with half enthusiasm.  From the stool, I ordered them to wash their hands outside, dump the weird color of water and refill it with clean soapy water as fast as they could.  Next, I told the students with white rags and scrubbing brushes to use the clean water to scrub the display of wacky colors off the walls before the principal passed by.  Now we all worked taking turns using a few white rags/brushes to scrub the walls, desks and floors trying desperately to remove the various colors of dye.  It seemed like we had been scrubbing forever when we finally gave up.  Although the walls weren’t nearly as vibrantly stained as before, they definitely weren’t white anymore and it looked liked someone had puked all over them. 

As they say in Bhutan, “What to do?”  So I confessed about the mess to the principal and I asked him if I could repaint it.  He was very understanding and actually had a good laugh over it.  Since grades 4-10 compete for cash prizes on who has the best looking classroom, my students and I were determined to re-paint our now yucky looking walls.  It took us four days of our free time to paint and stain the floors, but we finally did it.  I can’t claim that we now have the best looking walls, but I’m just relieved that we no longer have the multicolored stains that hunted me in my sleep. 

Moreover, I have learned a valuable lesson when cleaning a classroom in Bhutan:  When asking students to bring rags for cleaning make sure you tell them to bring white rags as opposed to colored rags, which might leak the dye and ruin whatever you are cleaning.  As the saying goes, you live and you learn!


The pictures below tells the story as it happened in chronological order:  

Wow, kids this wall is very dirty!
Lets clean it and have the cleanest class in the school
Yeah the principal will be so proud of us

Children, I think that's enough soap 

Who's going first?  The green rag is off to wipe the walls
Thank you green rag...

Next?  Here comes the blue and purple rag...

Everyone is following directions... good job kidos!  This is Fun!

Ahh Freeze!  Oh My! What happened to the walls?

Oh I see!  All the rags are bleeding their dye color. Hmmm
What to do?

White rags and brushes only
hurry up and scrub the dye off the walls

Teacher, it won't come off!
Scrub harder!  

Teamwork

 1st WEEKEND OF PAINTING

  Lets repaint the walls now with some interesting paint

Painting half of the wall

Painting is fun

Wash the floors

No more dirty walls

Wash the dye stains off the floors

All done for the day.  Move the tables back in.

End with a picnic!  We all sampled 16 different curries.

2nd WEEKEND OF PAINTING

Ninth graders came to help us

Happy Kids

Yes, I get dirty too!  Scrub scrub scrub

Scrubbing paint off the door 

Cleaning our tables to bring them back inside

Hard Workers

3rd WEEKEND - THE FLOORS

Staining our floor a dark red

Stain, Stain, Stain

Sonam is the last one working to make the floor pretty

Oh noo now our hands are stained a dark red.  It never ends...