Blog Post 10 – Sanitary Insanity

“Can you wash?” Yes, this is a pretty intimidating question to get from a Tonga man the second night you are staying at his place. Especially right after you return from a long bike ride and sit down in the kitchen near him. Do I smell? “Yes, yes I can wash” I reply.

“Go, go” and the man indicates with his hands toward this low thatch structure with a chitenge covering the enterance. Well covering is a bit of an exaggeration I realized as I got closer, it had multiple holes in it, more than large enough to reveal everything. Everything, that is, that you had not already revealed by standing up in the barely more than waist height structure. And to top it off, the door faced the rest of the camp, so anyone happening to glance your way was looking straight into the bathing room. Luckily it is night I was thinking to myself. Ha, how wrong could I be.

While night kept me from accidentally revealing my body, I'm sure it revealed my bathing incompetence. I approached in jeans, shoes and a shirt, carrying a towel and soap. I removed my shoes outside, and entered the structure, promptly bashing my foot into the piece of tin roof that serves as the floor*. Then I removed my clothing, hanging it on the wooden posts that hold up the structure. At this point my jeans are upside down and everything in my pockets falls to the muddy dirt below.

*here floor is used in the sense that it keeps your feet somewhat out of the dirt and water.

After some time, my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, and I begin the bathing process. This is actually pretty easy, you just splash some water, use the soap and rinse off. It definitely helps to have short hair. Upon completing the bathing, and having finished towelling off, and feeling quite good about myself, I begin to put my clothes on. Of course there was now water on the ground and floor, and my jeans got soaked as I stumbled while putting them on. I also managed to drop my shirt in the mud, which made it pretty wet and dirty. I did eventually emerge, my feet suddenly becoming dust magnets as I tried to put the shoes back on. Back in the privacy of my room, I changed all my clothes and began to formulate a new bathing routine.

Good thing too, since the “Can you wash” seems to come every night. But with the new bathing 2.0 system, the question is no longer dreaded but actually quite welcome. Now I begin by removing all my clothes except underwear, sandles (tropicals) and an undershirt. Bathing begins by removing the undershirt and underwear and proceeding as usual. At the end I can wash my underwear in the tub (I finally understand why no one else's underwear is on the clothesline after washing) and wrap a towel around myself to walk back to my room. And sometimes it is so dark I don't even use the structure, but just bath outside. Simple, and actually a nice warm bath is a really nice way to end the day.

I believe I have reached bathing level 3.0 yesterday when I had the opportunity to bathe in broad daylight. My fears about revealing myself through the hole filled curtain were subdued when the second wife used some extra chitenges to increase the cloth to air ratio. And while a hot bath is nice at night, it is even nicer around 16:30 hours when dusk is just coming, and it is still very warm outside. You towel off, with the warm sun still beating down, and realize that “Can you wash” is the start of the nicest African sanitary experiences.