The Shower Dance

As promised, I am delivering a funny story. As some of you may know, I really enjoy showering. I enjoy it so much, that when I was in college I created something I like to call the "Rock-Out Shower." A Rock-Out Shower is when you turn up your favorite music really loud and rock-out in the shower. It's hard to get a rock-out shower because sometimes you don't have a stereo, or sometimes all you can get is bad radio. But when you can have a rock-out shower, it's great. Rock-out showers are best when you're not in a hurry.

Anyway, that said, I would like to inform you all that I have not had anything that even remotely resembles a rock-out shower here in Ecuador. After my experiences here I view the shower with a certain combination of disdain and trepidation. This will inevitably affect my personal hygiene. Luckily, you are all far enough away that you won't be affected.

So when I was staying with Cesar and Patricia (MMN fam), I first stepped in the shower after giving it a few minutes to warm up. I was surprised to find that the water was fine and I proceeded to do the whole shower routine. After shampooing and conditioning, I was ready to wash my face when lo and behold, the warm water was suddenly gone. I proceeded to step out of the stream of water and wash my face, sparingly using handfuls of water now and again to rinse. I followed the same pattern for the body wash portion of the shower. However, at the end of the shower, the hot water resumes (usually at a scalding temperature) long enough for me to rinse the conditioner out of my hair.

When I moved in with my host family, I had high hopes for the shower. They were dashed this morning when after waiting 10 minutes for the water to get warm, I realized it just was not gonna happen. I proceeded to shower while standing outside of the stream of water and stepping in only to rinse. Please be advised that I will be taking a rock-out shower extremely shortly after arriving back in the US. Additionally, there is a coffee situation here. It all seems to come out of these crazy little Nescafe machines. I would do about anything for a cup of fresh-brewed coffee from an actual coffee-maker. That's also on the list for when I return.

In other, less hilarious, news, I went to the Mennonite Church for the first time today. It was all in Spanish (of course), but I actually understood probably about 75%. The format reminds me of House Church in some ways. I feel like I'm starting to get into the Mennonite community here, which is a nice feeling. This evening Patricia had a birthday fiesta at her house which I also went to. I felt a little out of place because I had to concentrate so hard on translating everything, but it was really neat to see the community coming together for a celebration. There was a lot of singing, but I didn't really know the words so I mostly just listened. Tomorrow I'm going with Cesar and Patricia to... well, I don't really quite know. Vamos a ver! (We'll see)