Let me explain. That is not to say that we don't have running water. We do. When I say broke, I mean there's no hot water. People here think we're crazy for taking hot showers. They say cold showers are healthier, but we say screw that. We grew up on hot showers, and cold showers are chilling to the bone.
Our shower is heated by a little electric device. The water runs through it and is heated automatically. Sounds kind of dangerous, huh? We've never been shocked in our shower, but we have been shocked by a similar setup in a hotel. Anyway, no water heater here. Upside: unlimited hot water. Downside: if the electricity goes out (which happens often enough) or the little device breaks, there's no hot water.
So ours broke this week. We were without it for only a couple days. No tragedy, right? Except if you haven't showered in the days leading up to the breakdown of the shower head, a couple more days could be detrimental to the olfactory senses of those around you. So I resorted to this: a cold shower accompanied by a pot of water previously heated on the stove.
Asà es la vida, my friends.
I stumbled across your blog because a friend (Erika) is following it. I lived in Honduras for a year--near Tegucigalpa--a few years ago. Since it's still "winter," I thought I'd share our hot water solution. We didn't have a water heater (cold showers were glorious when it was hot!), but we used to take a big paila and mix pila water with boiling water from the stove and use a cup to rinse ourselves. It was wonderful. Enjoy your time down there. You'll never see the world the same way again.
ReplyDeletePS - It's funny--I noticed that you were in Quito before this. I came home from Honduras and ended up in Quito for part of a semester. =)
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