Bath Time

It's the little things we take for granted.  Like having 24 hour access to clean, running water, that can magically be changed from cold to warm to hot with the flick of a wrist!  The shower situation here is interesting to say the least.  From what I can tell, there are three levels: bucket baths, cold showers, and electroduchas.

Bucket baths are relegated to volunteers living with host families who do not have regular access to running water, and, sometimes, to lazy volunteers.  I fall into the second category.  There have been plenty of long stretches where I've missed our window of running water and, like some folks do with a shirt they wore the previous day, I give myself the sniff test and call it good for another day.  Sorry Mom!  Here's why I try to avoid them like the plague.  So a bucket bath, as you can imagine, involves water and buckets.  You fill a 5 gallon bucket with water from the pila (see earlier post for description), take the big bucket with you to shower, get nekkid, use a smaller bucket as a ladle, pour water on yourself, lather up with soap, pour more water on yourself to wash the suds off, and voila, clean as a washing machine.  Sounds like a little more work than a normal shower or bath, but not too bad, right?  Except that this water is generally very cold to frigid.  It's one thing to have to force yourself to run under a constant stream of cold water for a few seconds, it's a whole other ballgame to actively pour it on yourself...  Luckily, I have only had to endure one so far.

Cold showers seem to be the norm, you just hope that you've got decent pressure.  In 2 of my 3 home stays, I've had cold water; once with good pressure, currently barely a trickle.  The reason that makes such a big deal is because of the 'water pressure/duration of shower' ratio.  The harder the pressure, the less time you need to agonizingly take to get clean.  In both instances, our water was rationed and we tended to get it at the coldest times of the day.  In my last house, we had running water from a spring high in the mountains (read: cold) from 6-7am and 8-9pm pretty much every day.  I currently have running water from 5-9am daily.  The early morning is just about the last time I want to shower with cold water.  At midday when it's 90 degrees?  Ok.  At 5pm after playing soccer for an hour?  Sure. 

If your house has an electroducha, you've hit the jackpot.  Sort of.  An electroducha is a scary contraption that is attached to the shower head and heats the water passing through using electricity.  Sounds semi-dangerous.  In fact, there are some brands that you have to literally jump like a car battery to turn on, while the water is on...  A fellow volunteer had one of these.  I say 'had' because after she worked up the nerve to make sparks fly while in the shower, her electroducha overheated, popped, and smoke bellowed out of it.  Not only had she endured a frightening experience that should have resulted in at least minor electrocution, but now she was relegated to frigid showers too.  Luckily, in my first house in Zarabanda, I not only had an electroducha, but I had one that automatically turned on once you hit a certain level of water pressure.  The good life indeed!

I've spared you any photos of me actually taking showers, but below are a couple from inside my shower because there's something else to look out for that I hadn't previously mentioned.  It's wise to have a peek in your shower before stepping in, I found these two critters in mine...  Remember, it's the little things that we often take for granted!

The size of the palm of my hand

Even bigger and more menacing...