by J. Kevin Cool

It was, Arthur Sawtelle would decide later, the toughest job he ever loved.

For two weeks last fall, Sawtelle, supervisor of custodial services, overcame communication barriers, homesickness and extraordinary physical demands to help improve conditions at a children's hospital in Moscow. He was part of a group of custodians and custodial managers from across the United States organized by People to People, an exchange network that sends American citizens abroad on humanitarian missions.

Sawtelle heard about the opportunity from Physical Plant Director Alan Lewis, then hooked up with organizer Bob Thomas, a custodial manager at Cornell College in Iowa. The trip began October 21 from New York.

The hospital where the group worked was a sprawling 550,000-square-foot facility built in the mid-1980s. "It already looks forty years old," Sawtelle said. The custodial group was at the hospital to train staff, to clean and sanitize rooms and to give guidance on equipment and supplies they would need to keep the hospital as germ-free as possible. The Americans were assigned to an operating unit and cleaned the entire area on the first day, according to Sawtelle. He was amazed and apalled at the "filthy" conditions in the operating room. "There was a light fixture directly above the operating table that was full of gunk that filtered down every time the light was moved," he said. "One of the physicians there told me that it hadn't been cleaned in ten years."

Sawtelle noted several striking contradictions. For example, although the hospital had millions of dollars of state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, cleaning staff relied on medieval solutions to address a lack of appropiate supplies. "The brooms they used were bundles of sticks tied together," Sawtelle said. "What they used for a mop was a board on the end of a handle with a cloth wrapped around it." Perhaps the most extraordinary observation: cats roamed hallways and scampered under doors all over the hospital, Sawtelle says.

There was no official cleaning staff, so nurses tried to keep up as best they could when not working with patients, Sawtelle says. They were "eager and friendly" and welcomed the Americans' ideas and guidance. "My biggest frustration was not being able to communicate. I used sign language a lot-got pretty good at it, in fact-but it was hard to really teach them in a one-on-one situation."

Sawtelle says lack of money appears to be damaging Russian society. "We saw a lot of young men in three-quarter-length leather jackets, which is the 'uniform' of the Mafia there. We were told that physicians make an average of about one hundred dollars a month. A typical Russian citizen lives on about fifteen dollars a month."

Decay and poor management have left Moscow's infrastructure hurting, Sawtelle says. Like the hospital where they worked, the hotel where the group stayed was poorly constructed. He described how his roommate once had to jump from the elevator to the floor after it stopped a few feet from its destination. On another occasion, unable to get an elevator at all, Sawtelle and some colleagues walked down 24 flights of stairs searching every few floors for stairwell entries because the building had been erected in asymmetrical sections.

The people he met showed resilience and spirit, Sawtelle says. "I grew up with the Cold War and had always imagined Russians as militant, cold people. I found them to be very friendly."

Before they left, the American group left toys and clothing for the children in the hospital, including a handful of Colby hats and T-shirts. "I feel what we did made life better for the children at the hospital," Sawtelle said. "There is so much to do, but I hope we helped a little."