Thursday, July 29, 2010

A Filipino Shower

WARNING: THE CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG ARE T-M-I. IF YOU WOULD RATHER SKIP A POTENTIALLY AWKWARD READING, MOVE ON DOWN TO THE NEXT ENTRY.









Scene: Shower
Time: 8:30am
Outside temperature: 89*
Humidity everywhere: 100%


Yes, you read right, I'd like to tell you in detail about my first shower experience in the Philippines. I had never been more eager and excited to take a cold shower in all my life. I'm not talking room-temperature cold, or washing-your-hands-before-eating cold, I'm talking about from-a-mountain-stream cold. It was exhilarating. It was so cold that it made me catch my breath for a moment when it hit my skin, yet I was too entranced to move away. It was the kind of shower I could stay in forever.

If you are unaware, the Philippines is an extremely hot and humid place. Hopping into the shower only meant a slight reprieve from the heat, but sadly not the humidity. Being as hot as it was, my skin had absorbed the heat until it was just as hot as the air around it. My skin was so warm in fact, that by the time the cool water rolled down my head and arms, and pooled in my hands, it had already become noticeably warm. I turned my attention to the water reaching my feet. Same experience. I had no idea my skin could change the temperature of water.

I finished my shower quite content to stand under the gushing stream indefinitely, and prepared to towel off. It was then I noticed a small gecko crawling near the open window in the shower stall. Ah, the inhabitants of humid climates. I missed seeing lizards all over the house. Instead of picking it up like I wanted to, I decided to urge it back out the window. No sense keeping a Peeping Tom around. I toweled dried as best I could and failed miserably to put clothes on. You see, it is absolutely impossible to tell whether your skin is wet with water or already wet with sweat after that bout of showering. I dried myself multiple times, but no matter how much I dried off, two seconds later beads of moisture popped up all over my body. Trying to be dry in a country that practically breathes moisture is a futile attempt, I decided. I eventually got a dress to slide on. Took me five minutes, but eventually I was decent enough to leave the bathroom.

So here I go, leaving you, my devoted readers, in the dry heat of Oregon, as I try to wade through the water that flows around me everywhere I go.

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