The Night of Tuesday February 25th.
So Tuesday’s are pretty good days. I would say I have my favorite classes on Tuesday, my irish lit class and my American foreign policy course. My America and the Wider World professor is a nutjob. He is off the wall and says ridiculous things but that keeps the class very interesting. I cant really even remember exactly what he did but I’m sure he made fun of Americans and Australians, talked about how drunk irish people get, and asked if any other students had been to the pub before class. He hadn’t seen anyone from our class he said. Anyway. After classes, I went to Tesco with Arnaud to get ready for his big Caribbean dinner. He had made up the menu and he was making some sort of baked fish and some sort of fried dough like thing with fish and peppers in it. I was intrigued. We did all the shopping and got everything we needed. It was interesting when he went to pay though and his card for some reason was messed up and wouldn’t work. Luckily I had brought mine so we used it to buy the grocery’s (we were cooking for about ten people so it was pretty expensive). We got back and started doing some stuff around the house. We were planning on having a few people over so we cleaned up a little bit and I set up the table in my room. It was mostly French people over for dinner and by the time we finally even started to eat it was almost 9:30 or maybe even later. I actually didn’t go to lacrosse practice so I could stay home and help cook and enjoy dinner, but before we even ate, Len called me and said he was outside with some of the guys. I had forgotten that I had invited them over to our party that night but we hadn’t even finished dinner yet. I pretty quickly decided to just bring them over to the girls apartment which was a pretty perfect plan because when we got there were as about 15 girls and two guys and I just brought in like 5 of my teammates from the lacrosse team so I think they definitely enjoyed that. I stayed for a little bit but then ran back home for dinner. (keep in mind its probably close to 11.00 by now!)
Dinner was tremendous and then for desert he made some fried bananas which were also delicisou. By desert time people were starting to come over so that was also cool. My mission to find great cups and ping pong balls was a big hit so I guess it was worth the walk. It was really fun playing pong with some Europeans who had never played it before. A few people played some games but Heloise was my partner and she had never played Beirut before so I tried to emphasize the importance of this moment to her. Luckily she got it and made her first shot ever. Great way to start! It was really cool to have so many Americans in the apartment too. I don’t think I had to ask for a French translation once so that was extra awesome. The night was going great and it was cool to be separated into different rooms so we weren’t all clogged in the living room. All the dudes from the lacrosse team were having fun, the French were all hanging out with my American friends, it was really really great. Heloise and I won 3 games in row, life was good. Until there was a loud noise in the kitchen. I ran in and it was like the scene of a cheap horror movie. Len was using the Fire Extinguisher and sparaying the walls and ceiling, while Arnaud immediately ran out of the room and into his shower. Within seconds our entire apartment was filled with smoke and dust and everyone was running out of the apartment with their shirts over their faces. Luckily everyone got outside very quickly and no one else was injured. While our apartment was completely trashed, the main thing was that everyone (besides Arnaud) was ok. Valerie had some small burns on her wrists but nothing too major. Apparently what had happened was Arnaud had been frying up the last of his dough balls and something had caught fire on the counter. Instinctively he had thrown some water on it which, in the heat of the moment seems right, probably isn’t the best option for a grease fire. After everyone was out of the house and scattered from the middle of the apartment complex, we went back in to see the damage and to get Arnaud some help. His arms were completely fried, and he sat under the shower for what seemed like forever. He had blisters all over his hands (luckily we took his ring off before his blisters swelled even worse…)and up his arms. The security guard on hand was nearly (definitely) worthless, and didn’t even know where to find the first aid kit. Luckily the girls in the apartment above us were all nursing majors and had lots of stuff to help him out and get through the night before he would go to the hospital in the morning time. That night he must have smoked an entire pack of cigarettes (that Camille and I had to hold for him) before he finally went to sleep. I slept on the floor next to him and Camille stayed in his room. Our other two roommates slept in a friends apartment because the smoke and dust smell was too strong for them because their rooms were closer to the living room.
The next day when we looked around we got a real sense at how lucky we are AND how bad everything got messed up. The entire ceiling was black as night and the walls looked like someone had shaded them from black to white. Some of the cabinets were ruined, all the light fixtures, and Camilles Iphone were all victims of the night. Arnaud went to the doctors the next day and got bandages and drugs to help make him feel better so I am sure that helped him out a lot. Tomas and I, with some major help from Ryan began to clean the ceilings that day, and realized how hard it was going to be to clean up after everything.
Its too bad such an awesome night turned so crappy, but luckily everyone was pretty much o.k. and by now have realized that can fix most of the things and will just have to wash the walls and repaint the apartment ourselves. Supposedly we are pretty legendary now as well because no one has had a fire in Shanowen Square in something like 6 years. I think every single person that walked by stared into our apartments for the next week or so until we got it all cleaned up. People would see us walk out of the building and ask us if we knew about that fire that they heard about. For most of us we just kind of shrug it off and say whatever, but all Arnoud has to do is lift his bandaged hands in the air and mumble something in French.
So the morals of this story is.
Don’t put water on a grease fire.
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