Two days after move-in and a long road lies ahead. Dirty floors, not much furniture, and no time to address either. Work is way too busy (a topic I won’t address here), and I was exhausted and in a rotten mood when I got home. All the more reason to start cleaning and get this process of settling in rolling already.
NOW…those of you living in the Western Hemisphere may be familiar with something I like to call a mop. While the internet, the Big Mac, and “Mmm…Bop!” have made it here over the years, somehow this futuristic cleaning device made a left turn around Cyprus and lost its way. To compensate for this horrible loss, Israelis have developed their own system of cleaning floors. I call this process “complete insanity”. Let me walk you through it. Take my hand and let’s explore it together!
1) First, you must clear your bedroom of any objects which might possibly touch the floor. Beds, dressers, 800 pound gorillas…it don’t matter! GET IT OUT! A fun alternative is to just leave your stuff there, allowing the possibility that it might get drenched later.
2) Next, you fill a bucket with soap and water. We’re on a roll.
3) Third, you locate the drain in the apartment which you’ll eventually push the dirty water into. Notice I didn’t say “mop”. That would be far too easy. The drain should be extremely inaccessible, preferably located in the corner of another room, under the kitchen table. When pushing the water from one room to another, make sure that you have no choice but to maneuver it around corners, defying at least 2 of Newton’s laws of physics.
4) Sweep the floor. With a broom. Like in America.
5) Like a burst from a cannon, launch the bucket of water indiscriminately in any direction. If you can hit a couch, an electronic device, or a baby, no worries! After all, YIYEH B’SEDER! This is what we Israelis do.
6) Take the magav, or squeegie on a stick (seen below), and push the water towards the drain.
An unknown Israeli having his way with the magav.7) Take your smartut (cloth/towel/rag?) and wrap it around the bottom of your magav in order to dry/scrub the floor. They might have just been messing with me here.
Repeat this process weekly.
WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?! Ok, this is where I draw the line! Doing this every week?!?! What are Israelis doing to their floors that they require this kind of maintenance? I’m not saying I’m the cleanest guy in the world (nor are any of my former roommates) but I guess my dust tolerance is a little bit higher. My new roommate Hila and her friend decided to help me with this process and got a good laugh out of it. Me handling the squeegie probably looked to them much like the dorky kid in gym class trying to swing the baseball bat and missing by 30 feet (if they knew what a baseball bat was). And of course we each played our role well: me, as the nervous American Jew: “Be careful with the water! My laptop’s over there!”, and them as, well, Israelis: “No prohb-lehm! Dohn’t woh-ry!”
In the end, I can sleep knowing my floor is a little bit cleaner, a good thing considering I’m sleeping on it until I get a bed (I have a mattress, Mom and Dad). Anyway, I have to go-it’s taken me about an hour to write this. I think it’s time to clean the floor again.
Ben, this entry had me in stitches! But now that I’ve finally stopped laughing I must tell you that you are SO wrong. The magav is the best invention ever. Rather than spreading dirt all around your floor with a mop, you actually get rid of it with the water and then dry the floor with the cloth. Your floors ends up MUCH cleaner than with a mop (a good thing, especially when you’re sleeping on them!).
Benji, hee hee, this is really funny. If you’d like me to send you a swiffer, just say the word!
B ~ keep up the excellent cleaning work! Will you come to my house next?
You can buy a mop and wringer in the shuk, you know. My wife swears by the “sponga”, but I mop to spot clean (we have puppies). She says I’m just smearing the pee around. She “flushes” the floor with a bucket and rubber squeegee every morning, and most days again at night, out onto the patio.
The difference between you and a veteran Israel–especially a veteran Mizrachi Israeli–is that the Israeli does this every day.
It’s “smatut”, btw, not “smartut”. And it is wrapped around a “goomi”. These are not words you learn in ulpan.
Next week you’ll learn how to polish your floors with soap flakes. Floor polish is a very new invention here.
OK, this one is going to my mother, in addition to the aforementioned idiot’s guide posts. How could I have forgotten about sponga!
Benji, you've described the process perfectly!
When I lived in Haifa in the 90's with my custom-fitted gas mask to match my stylin' Carmelite nun's habit and veil, I had to go through the same floor-cleaning initiation as you. But, our Carmelite vocabulary was so much more romantique because eet wazz ahl een Franch, mon ami. You need the smatut? Ask for "le torchon, s'il vous plaît." And what about that magav? Ask for the sponge – "l'éponge" – or the stick – "le bâton" – or, just ask for the thingamajig over there, "ce truc là-bas".
I like the concept of cleaning floors, Israeli style, assuming the floor drains are strategically well-placed, as they are at the nuns' monastery in the French Carmel neighborhood. Here in the States, we've got the equipment: bucket, water, Lysol (my fav), Shamwow, squeegee w/broomstick handle. Check.
Now that I've got those materials, I'm still looking for the widget-thingy that let's me add WhatWarZone to my list of fellow BLOGGER accounts to track…
Glad this post still gets comments three years later. Really strikes a nerve I guess…
That still photo is great… this time, "You've GOT to Be Kidding Redux: THE VIDEO"… I Googled for a photo of some Sabra cleaning lady, and found you! Hey, this is better already. So, I posted the photo with an excerpt of your blog entry and your URL onto a fun thread at my cycling forum and also on my FB profile, then found you and did the fan thing. All the cyclists who read your blog post got big yucks out of it! So now, I have to figure out when you make your next swing through the States and come to W.A.S.P. Indianapolis.
Benji – You are soooo funny! I'm laughing hysterically reading this. When will you be back to entertain me in person and try out your new material on me?
Thank you!