What it is like to bathe once a week

Towards the middle of last month, the water pressure in my part of town dropped significantly. There was still enough water coming out for us to cook with and even enough to shower with, but the pressure was not high enough for my hot water heater to work. The sensors in the heater weren’t tripping when I turned the water on, so I couldn´t get any hot water. This was a pretty big problem for me since it has been cold and rainy lately. I tried to take a cold shower one night, and I barely got my head wet before I ran out of curse words to yell. Instead, I used my neighbor´s shower which still worked. The problem with theirs was that it would run for about 10 seconds and the hot water would cut out. Then I´d have to shut the water off, let the heater reset, and try again. I ended up getting semi-clean, but it took a while and I ended up colder than I started. Since it was such a pain to shower, I ended up taking one shower a week for about the last month. I smelled pretty bad some days, but that´s life. I was contemplating “re-wiring” the heater Tim Allen style. I figured I could hook the gas up directly to the burners and light it with a match. This may have worked, but more likely it would have just blown up and killed me.

Fortunately, the head of the water committee spent a couple hours this week digging up a stretch of tubing and fixed the problem. I took a shower on three consecutive days…ah, the simple pleasures of the poor.

Another problem that I´ve failed to mention is that my camera broke (I say mine, but it really was my brother´s). It had been acting up for a while, and I knew it was a matter of time. The humidity here is so bad that pretty much everything breaks sooner or later. Some days I´d have to set the camera outside in the sun before I could take a picture because the inside of the lenses were all fogged up. That´s is why I haven´t had many pictures in the last month´s posts. I thought about getting a new camera, but I would end up just breaking that one too. Also, I´ve decided that taking pictures makes me look even more like a tourist, so not having the camera helps a little.

I talked to my boss the other day about the project proposal that I recently submitted. He said that the proposal was well written, and there were only a few things that I needed to modify. Then we started talking about some of the concerns that I had. He said that the profit margin on projects like ours was shrinking because the price of feed was going up. I told him that I didn´t think the ladies understood the risks and amount of work that was involved. He then asked about the other activities that the ladies were currently doing. I told him, truthfully, that all the ladies are busy constantly now and think that they can add the chickens without a problem. He said that they would need to drop all their other work to be approved, which they won´t do. That put an end to the conversation and to our project as well. I´m actually happy that it ended this way because I think doing anything with the ladies in my town would have turned into a disaster.

I was not looking forward to telling my neighbors and “friends” that I had accepted the job helping with training and was going to be leaving La Libertad earlier than I had planned. I finally had an opportunity to talk to my neighbors, Sara and Carlos, alone this week. We were driving to pick up some onions and a told them my plans. Carlos didn´t say anything, and Sara just said, “So, does this mean we are going to get a new volunteer earlier?” I had expected them to be upset that I was leaving, or at least kid me about wanting to live in the city. I was glad to see that in my 18 months here I made such a deep impression on them that they are more concerned with the next guy than me. Maybe this has something to do with them getting attached to Mike and then him treating them like shit and never visiting. Hopefully I´ll be able to break them of those feelings.

Speaking of the next guy, now is the time when we have to apply for a new PCV. I´ve talked to a couple of people about it, and I´m trying to talk them out of the idea. I´d feel sorry for the poor bastard that has to live here after me. In order to get anything accomplished, I´ve had to leave town. That´s not the way that it should work, so I´ve told them that if they want another PCV, they have to have concrete ideas of what they would do (I wish the previous guy had done that!). We´ll see what they come up with.