sixthiterationlogs | In Every Job that Must be Done...

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In Every Job that Must be Done...

WHO: Rory Williams
WHERE: Hospital
WHEN: January 27-January 31
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: Nothing too bad...
STATUS: Open

While Rory was glad to be reunited with his wife and confident that he could offer his nursing skills as needed, there was one thing still bothering him about his circumstances. While he had not heard of any serious injuries or sicknesses taking the Inn yet, he felt it a little on the "unprepared" side of things that the building that was clearly a hospital had seen such little attention. Sure, the village wasn't big now and probably any minor injuries had been treated on the spot or in people's homes, but what happened when a massive outbreak occurred and they needed a quarantine? Or what if there were massive injuries that made home visits illogical? The snow certainly wasn't going to help those matters at the moment.

So, with little better to do, Rory decided on a job he would assign himself and get to work on immediately: cleaning out and getting the hospital back in working order.

Step 1. Would be to "tour" the facility and see what was left of the place. How many rooms? How many beds? Where were the different stations. It was one of the bigger buildings so that could be a task that took several hours on its own. Unless someone joined to help of course.

Step 2. Would be to start repairing and clearing out any animals that might have taken up residence. There was no way he was going to get all of that done in one day, but people would probably take notice of a skinny Brit lugging broken pieces of furniture out of the building or yelling at rats to "shoo" and chasing them out with a makeshift broom.

Step 3. And once most of the major clearing was done there was, of course, the problem of actually cleaning the place. If the hospital was dirty there was going to be no point in using it. He knew they were lacking in disinfectants and any real cleaning supplies -- but honestly just getting out all of the cobwebs and dust would be a major step in the right direction.

Of course, for one man this would probably be too much. if he's by himself it's likely he won't even get a hallway done, let alone a whole wing or floor of this place. Still, all the more reason to start now and hopefully someone will happen along to help.

(ooc: Feel free to indicate what "step" you want to be helping with. Be prepared for random animal encounters too)

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"Considering we only just started -- I would say we are definitely going to need it over the next few days," he remarked. The cleaning and repairing of the hospital was certainly a daunting task, but he was prepared for it. Or at least, he knew they were going to needs this facility sooner rather than later.

He considered her question, at first not quite sure how to answer it. "Well, this is my first time seeing a hospital like this one. Where I'm from they are actually usually bigger. But typically you have beds lined in a row so you can move efficiently from patient to patient and everything is kept clean so as to prevent infection and other problems related to working with bodily fluids."

Moana kept working through their conversation. Her thin frame reached up to her toes, running the cloth along the wall before dipping down to a squat and rubbing away the layer of dust and grime. It’s a great work out and Moana took the work in stride.

"That sounds like a lot of sick people." She frowned at that though. "People don’t usually get sick on my island but when they do…" Moana kept working and for a moment she lapsed into silence. "They don’t usually make it. Sometimes they can pull through but it’s usually that person’s time to go."

Death was something that was inevitable and Moana grew up with it begin defined as a chapter to another story, not an end.

Rory had wondered sometimes just when Moana was from, he'd put together the where fairly quickly as far as the fact that she was from somewhere tropical. But it was comments like that and some of the other things she didn't seem to know about that always made Rory curious. Still, time could be a difficult thing to ask about.

"It does seem that way sometimes," Rory admitted, thinking about her comment about a lot of sick people. "I think here we'll see injuries more so than sickness. At least that is what I am hoping for. Either way, injuries can lead to sickness if the injury becomes infected and by cleaning we can at least try to prevent that outcome," Rory explained.

He could be wrong of course. Sickness was just as likely to strike, but he liked to hope that it wouldn't.

Moana wouldn't be able to tell him when she was from. She had no base to compare to and they told time differently than most. They had months but they went by another name and were measured by the passing of the moon so the number of days in each month changed accordingly.

"Yeah. How is it that you clean them?" She didn't know about much about first aid. "Do you just use fresh water?"

Moana hoped that no one got sick. Rory's comment about the cold getting people sick was the only reason that she'd taken it seriously. While having no experience with the cold she knew that sickness could easily lead to death.

"Water is a good start and likely what we'll be limited to here. Back home we have antibiotics and solutions we could use that would help kill harmful infections from starting." Where they were it was doubtful if he'd get his hands on anything like that. However, maybe they could improvise with at least a step up from just plain water, "We could probably make a saline solution--that's just adding a very small amount of salt to water and boiling it." He'd have to ask if anyone would be willing to make some, he knows the salt amount would be small, but he wasn't sure if he knew the exact amount.

"I'm also hoping that once it's warmer we can get some medicinal plants that might be helpful for dealing with pain or sickness -- there has to be some things we can use in the woods around here." Helen had mentioned as much, though he didn't know enough about plants to go looking on his own.

Moana nodded her head. "The river is fresh water. If we had access to salt water that might help." She didn't know that salt also came from the earth or rocks. Most of the salt that they got was left over when objects were brought in from the ocean and it wasn't exactly the salt you could use for very much.

"I know a few medical plants but they're all from my island. The plants here don't look alive." Which was due to the cold. "They're also unfamiliar." She frowned a bit, wishing that there was some way she could learn about the plants here.

"Is there a way to get seeds?"

Rory shakes his head, "We can make our own if we find someone who has salt -- they probably have some in the kitchen at the inn I would guess." He wasn't 100% sure, but salt was pretty much a staple of cooking right?

"Yeah...well, that happens when you venture to a different climate. I was talking to someone who might be a little more familiar with plants like that though. Maybe we could both talk to her and see if she can teach us how to find them," Rory suggested. Moana seemed like she could use some things to do and what was stopping her was mostly her unfamiliarity with her location. He hoped he could change that a little at a time at least.

"Not sure about seeds. I think there's a guy around here who handles most of the planting, but I haven't met him personally yet."

Moana didn't know about this area or the plants or the cold. All of it stopped her from doing more and helping out and it bothered her more than she let on. She was from a place where everyone worked together and that's what she wanted to do. While she was here, this place was a home and she'd treat it as such.

With a nod of her head she kept cleaning, her dark gaze glancing over at Rory.

"Who do you know who does most of the planting? Do they have a name?"

Rory has to wrack his brain for that information. "I haven't met them personally," he replies with a frown, thinking of what he'd picked up from around the village. "But I think his name might be Mark," Rory finally say, pulling the name from his memory.

He has started to clean, working on scrubbing the areas that Moana hadn't gotten to yet. He continues talking though, "However, we'll have to wait for it to warm up a bit before we can plant anything...I know that much."

Moana nodded her head with a determined gaze. "I'll offer my help to him then. I used to help care for the fields back home." She had to learn how every part of the island worked. "I think I can help here too."

She understood waiting, she was waiting for the warmth too. "We'd have to wait for the ground to get warmer. Anything in it now would most likely die from the cold." She didn't have to see that to know it was true. Even the tries outside looked dead to a degree. Moana felt herself wilting at times and it took the warmth of the inn to help her feel like herself again.

"Certainly more experience than I have. I'm sure he'll welcome it," Rory says. He thinks Moana will probably be a good asset, once she's learned to understand the climate a bit more. She certainly seems to be a fast learner if nothing else and Rory has every confidence that she'll catch on fast.

"It'll be warm again before you know it. Granted, I'm not sure how long winter lasts here...but the people who got here before us certainly seem to be confident that there was a warm period to enjoy, so we'll just have to trust them."

Moana did trust them but most of that trust was simply because she couldn't imagine a place without the warm presence of the summer sun. It was what she knew, what she'd spent her whole life with and she didn't think she could survive without it. Moana rarely let herself think that way but each night she felt the weight of the gray skies, as if the world was pressing down on her.

She really didn't like it.

"I'll do that then. After this." She waved down the long hallway that they were cleaning.

He fell into a rhythm of cleaning, making a a mental list of what to do next, what he could try to do in the future. His thoughts drifted to his fate here, because really all this was was an excuse to stay busy. After a few moments of silence, Rory spoke up again.

"How are you adjusting? This weather must be pretty draining for someone so used to a more tropical environment."

Moana paused and turned her head. "Yeah but it isn't so hard to stay warm if I keep busy." She's given herself a lot to do.

"I think I'm adjusting well."

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In Every Job that Must be Done...

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