A Three Shower Day

I had one of those days today where I did nothing that I thought I’d do, but didn’t waste a single minute. I guess that’s an experience lots of people can relate to, but the particular nature of my weird Saturday will especially resonate with people who have spent any time in the developing world. My plan for the day was to get lots of schoolwork done, read a little, go for a run (around the soccer field) and make dinner. A good plan for a Saturday in Haiti.

I woke up at 6:45 and was pretty delighted that I had managed to sleep in. It’s hard to do that here usually. I gathered up my laundry, the soap, some bleach and my hundred Goudes (about $2.50) to pay the lady who would wash my clothes. After my first attempt at washing my own clothes a few weeks ago I gave up in favor of the ladies who can do it about a hundred times better and faster than I can. Anyway … breakfast was at about 7:15 and we had my favorite tasty, absurdly sweet oatmeal. Yum. After breakfast I caught about 15 minutes of Internet time, then decided to go out to the back basketball court to run and work out a little. In the early morning sun (about 8:15) I can last running for about ten minutes. Then I pretty much die so I seek shade and do whatever new exercises I can think of using a resistance band and playground equipment. I’m getting pretty good at it! After my thirty minutes, I took shower number one. Those are the showers when I love not having hot water! So far, that’s exactly what I planned to do today.

At 9:15 we had a volunteer meeting that lasted until about 10:30. The fun part of that meeting was passing around the bag of Snickers that one of the board members had brought from the states! It’s totally normal to lick the wrappers of bite sized Snickers bars, right? Anyway, when that meeting broke up is when my day got weird. Since one volunteer wasn’t feeling very well, I told her I’d take care of her turn at the compost pile. I’ve been here six weeks and somehow have never had to deal with the incinerator or the compost, so I decided it was my turn.

Maybe you have a little compost bucket in your kitchen or backyard, and if you do, I think that’s awesome. I hope to do the same when I return to the States. But wow, the compost pile for the food remains of 400 people who eat three meals a day here … now that’s really something. It’s in two side by side concrete enclosures that are about 6 feet by six feet each, and when we started shoveling it, the pile was well over 18 inches deep at some spots. The task is to move the whole pile from one side of the pit to the other side so that the contents mix up which speeds up decomposition. Today we had the added bonus of sifting the compost which means that every shovel full gets put onto a wooden sifter with a mesh bottom. Two people then shake the sifter back and forth over a wheelbarrow to loosen any of the good soil that has formed, and then toss the remaining compost contents onto the new pile. Aside from being physically demanding work for Peter and me, and aside form the fact that it was in the 11 am sun, the most unpleasant part was that it smelled very strongly like baby vomit. Well, at first it smelled like baby vomit, but as we got to the bottom of the pile where the material was more dense and wet, it started to pretty much just smell like shit. And my other favorite part was that as we shook the sifter over the wheelbarrow, pieces of wet dirt and whatever else fell through the mesh landed all over my feet. Tasty.

After about an hour and a half we were done and spread the disappointingly small amount of dirt around one of the gardens. We put away the tools and I looked down at myself … and decided that the next part of my day would be dedicated to washing all of the clothes and shoes I was wearing. Too bad my laundry lady was already done with the rest of my clothes! Shower number 2 then took place at about 12:15, and even though I was physically clean at that point, I just couldn’t get the faint smell and taste of baby vomit out of the back of my throat for hours. Lunch however – chicken avocado salad - was delicious. And my sneakers are now better looking than they were when I got here!

I spent the next 2 hours washing my clothes and scrubbing my sneakers with a toothbrush and rinsing them in copious amounts of bleach and detergent. This task really shouldn’t take 2 hours, but I’m incredibly bad at it, so it did. Another afternoon meeting, followed by dinner prep which included a near catastrophe in the making of rice for 25 people, followed by Mass and a delicious dinner then led to my third unexpected shower.

During dinner, it started pouring. POURING. Rain here is serious business – it comes on fast and strong. As I took my first few bites of the very tasty dinner we had made, I heard the first sprinkles and ran outside with a flashlight to collect all of my clothes off the lines outside. I managed to rescue most of it before the real downpours, but by the time I made it back inside and sat down again, I was pretty wet. As we ate and listened to the pouring rain and thunder, the roof overhead started to leak a bit. Since I was already soaked, I didn’t really care that there was water dripping on my head, so I just kept on eating. It was a nice little pseudo-shower. Finally, after dinner I headed upstairs to put away my laundry and do some writing … when I remembered it was my turn to clean the bathrooms. Damn. So now, it’s about ten and I might go enjoy shower number 4 before going to sleep. So much for my plans for the day. I guess the schoolwork will have to wait until tomorrow?!