I've decided my first blog post should thoughtfully encapsulate my first impressions of South America, the essence of what it means to find one's self a stranger in a strange land, and also pay tribute to the rich heritage and local culture. So, cliches be darned, I'm going to introduce you to my bathroom:
Don't drink the water from this faucet unless you grew up in Paraguay. Even Chileans come here and get very, very sick. I suppose it's just a matter of time until someone serves me coffee or juice (or milk) made with local water. Until then, hands are washed with this water, and teeth are brushed with bottled water.
please refer to the schematic (below) to reference the following quips.
1. The trash can. Yes, even men's bathrooms have these little guys. I'm not convinced that the kind of toilet paper they sell in S. America is stout enough to clog even an artery, but it still doesn't go in the city sewer system. I remember it taking a little time to unlearn that habit twenty-some years ago when I moved back from Brazil. It's taken a little time to get back into the habit now...my personal apologies to Sao Paulo airport if their sewer system backs up. It was my fault.
2. The eagle-eyed among you will look at the shower head and wonder why there's electrical tape. That's mostly to keep the water from coming in contact with the electrical wiring. I'm glad someone thought to put electrical tape on that junction because there is a stream of water coming off that plastic tube to the side. If you adjust it properly, it won't spray on the wire. Here's the benefit of a bathroom with no carpeting and a central floor drain: the whole bathroom is your shower stall, solving that age-old need to brush your teeth and shower at the same time. For all you home-modification fans, the shower's naturally ADA accessible with a built in multi-functional shower seat: the toilet.
3. That's right, read it and weep, my bathroom comes with a urinal. It's possible that's a byproduct of my bedroom/apartment being a former storefront. I understand not all residential commodes come with such high-brow plumbing. True, I have to walk outside to get there, but a urinal's a urinal. Sometimes you just have to go the distance to reap the rewards. Another byproduct is that I've found the words “urinal” and “miracle” apparently occupy neighboring registers in my brain. Whenever I walk into the bathroom I start humming “That was a miracle [urinal] too” from Fiddler on the Roof. More recently it's been “I believe in [urinals]”.
I guess these wouldn't generally be considered “stained glass” windows, but they do give the bathroom a little more of an ecclesiastic aire. I have yet to kneel at the porcelain altar, but as my system continues to adjust to Paraguayan bugs, I'm sure it won't be long.
4 comments:
I always thought North Americans were sissies when it came to the whole electricity + water thing.
-Ben
Oooh this brings back memories.... I think the shower at Dave and Judy's house when I was there was either hot or cold...not much in between, so I always had to make the choice of whether to scald myself or freeze.
Water plus electicity? This kind of thing makes Aunt Ruth scared.
I love it! I now have "I believe in miracles" in my head every time I think of you! I think it took me close to a month before I realized that the light switch next to the shower in our bathroom actually turned on the hot watter and not a light! I guess most of the time I got lucky and the person before me had left it on so I had hot showers, but then one day I was complaining about how the water had never gotten hot and someone asked if I had turned on the switch, and there you have it. (-; I guess I'm a little slow.
Wish we were there with you!
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