The first is definitely about showering out of a bucket. I have this little voice in the back of my head telling me I've already written about it... but it just can't be true... The house I'm living in has running water. However, this running water all comes from giant plastic tubs outside the house. About once a month, they pay a huge truck to come fill these tanks with water. When the tubs are empty.. there is no water. With 2 more adults in the house showering every day, and using water for other daily activities, we ran out of water before it was time to get the tubs refilled! No running water, means that we get to use the rainwater collected outside in blue barrels. I don't know if I would always trust this water.. I don't usually pay attention to it, but water that's been sitting there awhile just can't be safe. Fortunately enough for me, it had just rained!! So I got a bucket, filled it with water, and headed for the shower - hoping and praying that one bucket would be enough. It would have to be enough. There was also a bowl that I could use to pour the water over my head. Now, Ghana showers are typically cool.. not freezing, but cold enough that I would be unhappy about it in the US. Here it can feel nice.. if it is a hot morning. Usually it only feels cold for the first few moments.. then it just feels cool. Anyhow, this water wasn't really colder than my typical shower here, but when you're physically pouring the water over yourself, bowl by bowl, it feels much colder!! The hardest part of showering with a bucket is washing your hair... actually, its just getting your hair all wet in the first place. Once that much was accomplished it was a pretty simple process. And I didn't even use the whole bucket! Apparently one can wash themselves with a very small amount of water.
This very small amount of water (I have little point of reference to guess at how many gallons this would be.. I think its smaller than the 5 gallon buckets..) seemed even smaller after I did some laundry yesterday! They do have a washing machine - and by this I mean a very small machine that you pour water into, and pour in soap, add 6-7 articles of clothing and it spins it for 5-10 minutes. Then you get to do the rinse cycle by hand, wring out the clothes, and then hang them out to dry. I only had a couple things to wash, and decided to just wash it by hand. Honestly, adding the whole washing machine step isn't worth it when washing 2 articles of clothing. So, I pulled out the bucket, and washed my stuff in the bucket. Creating my own washing, rinse, and drying cycles. This small activity took far more water than washing myself! (2-3 times as much water) Just an interesting new point of reference...
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