I am showered!! Really showered!!!! NO MORE BUCKETS!!!!!

Tonight when I came home from trying to play soccer with Nikki’s family my dad (Freddie) and one of my uncles and aunt pairs were sitting at the table with three of the giant beers. The custom here is to have one cup and share amongst everyone (instead of everyone having their own bottle ..aka probably the reason I have a sore throat..) and when I came in, apparently it was my turn to drink. My dad told me we were celebrating the installment of the water heater for the shower which means, NO MORE BUCKETS!!!! And thusly, I happily took the cup!

!!!!!!!YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve complained plenty about it but for those of you who don’t know, since I’ve gotten here, (until tonight!), I’ve been showering with a bucket. Basically, my mom (Matilde) would heat some water on the stove, dump it in a trashcan and give me a little bowl to shower with. This got increasingly stressful as the amount of water in the trashcan seemed to decrease with each shower… One full trashcan was definitely manageable, three-fourths trashcan I could handle.. when it got to be half a trashcan I started to freak out a bit and at ONE QUARTER trashcan, well by that point I was choosing between shampooing my hair and washing my body. (I normally just choose half of each, haha.) Thank god for the time I spent at Hair and More shampooing hair because I was able to wash my hair very efficiently. It was an experience for a week or so and I could probably have done it for the rest of the semester BUT I AM SO GLAD I DON’T HAVE TO!!!

At home I complain a LOT about our shower, well IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN THE POSSIBLITIES. I guess I prefer showering at home than showering out of a trashcan. (Yeaaa, mom and dad, you guys win!)

So yes, tonight we celebrated. What’s strange is after we all finished the three Pilsners, my dad sent the SEVEN year old Maria to go get us more beer! I was sort of disappointed when it turned out she was able to buy them… I didn’t necessarily want more to drink. But oh well, we had something to REALLY celebrate! I remember once in PA when I was with my dad at Rocky’s pizza getting dinner. I had gone with my dad to pick up the pizzas and when he tried to let me carry the bag of beer instead of the huge, hot pizza boxes, the owner nearly lost it. Well, that aspect of culture is very different here. Though it was still surprising to me when she returned with the new beers maybe it shouldn’t have been. Last night, at a party in Lumbisi for a school’s homecoming-type-thing my Aunt Pati bought a couple beers as did the parents of Zack. I was holding the cup in my hand when Mateo (FOUR YEAR OLD) took it out of my hand, poured a cup of beer and downed it! Tonight he showed up and my parents made a joke that it was because he smelled the beer, haha. (But don’t worry, he didn’t drink any tonight!) Tonight was a showering party in fact. Me, my mom, dad, brother, sister, two aunts, an uncle and one cousin all showered with the new water heater.

Twice today people asked me what my favorite food was and I had to try to explain what a pretzel was. I drew it and tried to say it was not a dinner or lunch type of food but rather a food like chips. Unfortunately, I only know chips as papas which is the same as potatoes which really just confuses everyone involved. OH WELL! I’m getting used to everyone being confused! The other day I was lucky enough to come across some pretzel sticks and while they didn’t taste exactly right, being labeled as pretzels mentally did the trick for me! ALSO the other day at Panera (which is not the same as the Panera in the USA just a coincidence) Nikki found a BRETZEL and bought it for me. Bread + Pretzel. HAHAHA. It wasn’t very delicious—more bread than pretzel.

Tonight I had crackers and jam for dinner. DELISH!

Overall, fun day. The ending was great. I didn’t realize how awesome it is to really truly feel clean. My spirit has certainly been uplifted. So much so, I don’t even mind the huge spider I just saw. Maybe it will kill the bugs I’ve taken to calling “curly bugs” (like the kind we used to play with) so that they don’t freak me out. Who knows what they really are, but loving little curly bugs they shall remain.

Kelsey