Task Master

Here in rural Africa, if your school needs any maintenance or new
construction you have to do it yourself. That means that our physics
teacher has been rewiring our fluorescent bulbs and our history
teacher, who is also a preacher, convinced his congregation to
rehabilitate the student latrines and build new ones for the teachers.
Since Luc is the director of one of the eighth grade terms, he
organized a student work day on Saturday to transport a mountain of
over 1000 bricks that our school bought from our landlord across the
neighborhood to the latrine construction site on campus. Since African
teachers can be fairly persuasive, we had close to 200 students show
up to work. Luc stood in the shade of a tree to document which
students actually delivered the required 6 bricks and which tried to
shirk their responsibility. Some kids carried all 6 of the large
bricks stacked on their heads in a single trip. Others tied the bricks
to bicycles or just carried them two at a time. A few crafty students
tried the trick Luc by rubbing brick dust on their hands and head,
claiming they were done with their part, but Luc cracked down, like a
good overseer. Students expect to perform physical labor on a regular
basis, so with surprisingly few complaints about having to sweat in
the morning sun, we finished the job within an hour and a half.