Building a School

I spent a month one summer in a job that has remained in my memory in black and white.

I was hired as an electrician’s helper installing the wiring for the intercom system in a “polyvalente”, a large complex offering academic courses but also equipped with workshops for students in apprenticeship programs in various trades.

I spent most of that month in the underbelly of that sprawling monster. It was not a basement, but an unfinished hole where all the arteries and veins of this behemoth were hidden. There were therefore no passageways and no doors that allowed us to navigate easily. High concrete walls separated one section from another. In places, there was enough space between these walls and the ceiling/floors above to crouch through. We had to climb over these to get from one place to another. To do so, I had to jump up a few centimeters, grab the ledge at the top of the wall with my fingers, and hoist myself up with the full weight of my body supported by my fingers only. I did this a few dozen times daily. In no way can I be considered an athletic person, but that summer, I was the fittest I have ever been.   

The only lighting came from a few lightbulbs dangling from loose wires. I remember B rated movies I sometimes watched when I was much younger. These low-budget flicks were in black and white and the lighting was extremely sparse, probably to try to hide the poor make-up jobs and other defects in the production. Our underground environment would have been ideal for such a movie.

My main task was to feed the wires that would lead to each of the offices, classrooms, and workshops into metal pipes that went through holes in the ceiling and into the walls of rooms above. Sometimes the metal pipes were too small for the number of wires and a block and tackle was required. Occasionally, additional brute force had to be applied and I would have to pull with all my might. It was not easy work.

I don’t remember eating lunch out in the open. I suspect we had to do so down below because it would have been too time-consuming to go back up and down again. The ground was of clay, sometimes wet with dripping pipes and there were puddles here and there. The air was dank, stuffy, and although it was summer, a bit on the cool side.

Despite all of this, my memories of that summer job are positive. I think it is because I was aware that I was not just stuffing wires through pipes; I was helping to build a school. Education has always been important to me and even this seemingly small contribution to making it possible for others gave me a sense of accomplishment.