A tempremental relationship

I wrote this entry a while ago but never posted it. So here goes, the saga of myself and the shower and our rather difficult relationship. 


I write this as I warm up from yet another freezing cold shower. This has been an everyday day situation since I arrived. Try as I might I can't fix it! It doesn't seem to matter which knobs I turn or buttons I press, it's always cold, colder or freezing! The funniest thing is that Diana can get it to stay hot for at least a little while but when I try, it stubbornly refuses to comply.  I'm really not amused by its tricks.  I don't know if a lack of hot water is common in Lima or if perhaps my shower has a particularly malicious streak (I'm thinking the latter).

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining though, I do have a lot to be thankful for: running water, a warm bed at night, a safe place to stay and food on the table. I've seen many, many people here who don't have these things. Being in Peru is teaching me some important lessons in what I think I need and what I can do without. Turns out a cold shower is bearable. All the same, every night I secretly hope someone has been in in the middle of the night and fixed the shower. Alas no such luck yet anyway. I guess a refreshingly chilly shower each night is just what I deserve if I've spent the day complaining about the heat though!

In fact its not just the shower I can't figure out. I'm not doing all that well with any of the bathroom applicances. I was very helpfully told by Megan at the beginning of my stay in Lima that you can't flush toilet paper down the toilets here: it all goes in a little plastic bin beside the toilet. Well, you can imagine what that must be like. I found this a little hard to believe at first so I played the ignorant foreigner and flushed it all away. I was quite pleased with myself when this worked fine at least the first couple of times. But, my success was short lived and I ended up very narrowly avoiding a flooded bathroom. Turns out the unspoken rule about the toilet paper is actually there for a very good reason. No more toilet paper down the toilet then...

My problems don't end there though! You can't drink the tap water here in Peru at all - I'm told it harbours some nasty bugs and to stick to boiled or bottled water, which I do (when I remember). But, I'm so used to brushing my teeth with tap water at home that I often catch myself just in the nick of time before rinsing my toothbrush. This is a particular problem in the morning when I stagger into the bathroom in zombie mode to brush my teeth and accidently turn on the tap and get stuck in only to realise in panic what I'm doing. I've done this a few times now and spent the rest of the day watching out for signs of some deadly disease, convinced I've probably poisoned myself! So far I'm happy to report I'm still alive and trying very hard to steer clear of the tap water, not flush toilet paper and not complain about the shower :)