There are certain things that I live on a daily basis and I forget to take note of their rarity or to share them with anyone. I realized the other day that I talk to my mom (my real one) every single day, but I just haven’t really said much or told her about things here. Life in a developing country is quite different from life in the U.S., if you can imagine that.
My mom mentioned that I haven’t complained to her about anything. As most of you know, this is contrary to that which is me. Somehow these lack of amenities and the presences of creepy crawly bugs and electroduchas are somewhat comforting. Life is just easier. But for you to get a feel of some things, I am not going to complain about anything, just describe for you. Take it for what it’s worth.
I get up every morning to the chickens crowing and dogs barking. I could sleep with my window closed, but it gets to stuffy and hot in my room (which by the way is decorated with Hannah Montana and Strawberry Shortcake, complete with S.S. sheets. Thanks, Lizabeth [my little sis]), so I elect to sleep with the window open and endure the sounds of the morning. After I force myself out of bed, I go to the bathroom. If you don’t know, you cannot flush toilet paper in the toilet here. You have to put it in the trash can. If the dogs and chickens don’t wake me up, the smell of the bathroom shared by 11 people does. There’s also a small apparatus missing from the tubos negros (sewage pipes) here as well. In the U.S. there is sort of a trap door on drains that eliminates smells and other things from returning. This said apparatus doesn’t exist here. After that, comes the water issue.
Water only comes here 2, sometimes 3 days a week. When it comes and there is running water, we are free to flush the toilet normally. Also, we then fill up the pila (pronounced: pee-luh, meaning the big thing that holds water) and that is the water we use for the next several days: brushing teeth, washing hands, clothes, and then there’s the toilet. When there’s not running water, well, toilets don’t flush because the tank can’t fill. Toilets work with gravity. If you throw a bucket-full of water into the toilet bowl, it will flush without using the little handle to do it. So on days without water, I exit the bathroom, fill up the pila (pronounced: pie-luh, large plastic bowl used for lots of things like flushing toilets and washing clothes and brushing teeth), and pour that water into the toilet bowl to flush it. As you can imagine, this isn’t a very sanitary practice. You have to be careful to pour the water fast enough to flush the toilet, but slow enough that you don’t get splattered.
I can be slightly a germ freak at times, and I have to say that bathrooms are a source of pain for me. I carefully get in and out of the shower, touching as little amount of the floor as possible, avoiding any splatter from the previously mentioned process. Ants and cockroaches also like that big trash can filled with used toilet paper. The other day I went to pick up the toilet paper and there were about 10 giant, black, carpenter ants that exited the roll of toilet paper and ran down my arm and I had a slight freak out. I do though, have hot water and I do enjoy that experience about our bathroom. However, there are little tricks to it. The first trick is to avoid getting shocked.
Hot water heaters don’t exist here either. Instead there’s the invention called the electroducha (electric shower). Basically, it is a shower head that is attached to an electric current. When the water is turned on, there is a little thermometer inside the electroducha that tells the electricity to turn on and heat the water. Sometimes that little thermometer doesn’t like to sense the water. “The water isn’t getting hot,” I yell to my little brother. “Pégale duro!” (Hit it hard!) my brother says in response. So after hitting the shower head a few times, carefully avoiding the little streams of water coming down from the exposed electrical cords and only being successful at this half of the time, I eventually get hot water and a gentle shock from the water that flows from the electrical wire. It’s all worth it to have water hot enough to steam up the bathroom mirror. I am one of few who has this privilege.
My family that I will return to on Tuesday doesn’t have this wonderful device called the electroducha. The weather there is a good 15-20 degrees cooler, but no hot water. So after telling my family here about this dreaded situation, they took me to their Ferraterría (like an Ace Hardware store, which my family owns) to resolve matters. The brought me this little device that is basically a piece of PVC pipe with holes drilled into it with a hairdryer coil inside it and a plug coming out of it. Sounds safe, huh? I paid about $6 for it and took it home. They call this thing a Calentadora de Agua (a hot water heater). The directions tell me to:
1. Submerge in water.
2. Connect the 110 volts 300 watts.
3. Disconnect before taking out of water.
4. The time needed to warm the water is proportional to the amount of water.
I forgot to mention that this is water that I will get from the pila (the one pronounced: pee-luh) and put into a quinto (5 gallon bucket). Then I will use the pila (the one pronounced: pie-luh) to pour the carefully heated water over myself to shower. Anything warmer than the ice water from the mountains is better than nothing.
It is now 6:45 a.m. and I have already done all of this. Let the day begin and bring on the tortillas!
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