Worst tasks at HopeCenter: a comparative study

I always thought the worst job at HopeCenter was sewer duty (haha, duty...) but today I have been exposed to one that might leap frog it in the standings.  Remember as you read this that I have been blessed - by way of a croquet mallet to the face in my youth - with a very bad sense of smell  so when I refer to stench, it is much worse than you might imagine.


I'll give you the breakdown and you can make the call....

Sewer duty:
Currently the camp has exactly 8 people here consistently.  That doesn't significantly tax our waste disposal system as long as no one flushes toilet paper (especially when some percentage of those utilize the trees as outdoor urinals).  On the other hand, during the summer there are as many as 150 folks here.

Occasionally it becomes necessary to clear out the sewers in order for them to function at peak efficiency - following the proverbial logic of poo flowing downhill.  Around camp there are several dozen manholes for the sewers which all have at least an in-coming and out-going path that runs through them.  When it gets clogged up someone has to climb in and dig out the gunk.  Since what passes through is mostly bio-waste, it decomposes into a black sludge.  The smell is... unpleasant to say the least.

Aside from the smell, the worst part is the headaches.  I think the decomposition releases methane; not the gas on which human respiratory system is designed to function.  On several occasions I've honestly thought I might pass out from what I assume is oxygen deficiency.


Meat room refrigerator cleaning:
This was a new one for me... and I think Yuri too.  Basically, the big fridge in our kitchen's meat room is where the once-frozen raw meat is stored temporarily prior to being turned into goulash or whatever.  A smell had begun to develop so today we endevoured to clean it out.  Apparently, over the past few months the process has been allowing blood and juices (mostly pork) to leak down into the frame at the base - a fact that unknown to us when we started.

Upon pulling the first screw a geyser of a black sludge (there seems to be a pattern developing here) came shooting out, accompanied by an odor that made the aforementioned sewage smell like sugar cookies by comparison.  It oozed, I cleaned, it oozed again, I cleaned up again, I flushed it out and cleaned up again.  By this time the whole end of the building was absolutely rank and I was covered in it up to my elbows.

As I type this, I can still smell it on my hands after washing with (in this order):

• hand soap
• industrial hand cleaner
• dish soap
• diesel fuel
• concrete water (lye and sand - for exfoliation)
• hand cleaner again
• body wash
• face wash

All that and it's still there.  If you can smell something over diesel fuel it's quite a smell.  I still don't know if the fridge will ever be useable again.

I debated posting about it but in the end decided that since it has dominated my day (due to the constant odor reminder) I would write it up.  I have tried not to be gratuitously disgusting and I assure you the actually experience was worse than I've conveyed.

What do you think?  Shoveling decaying sewage vs. cleaning rotting pig blood - which is worse?