Bathing in America

Let’s be honest here- in the Peace Corps I came nowhere close to bathing every day. In a normal week I probably bathed twice, a good week three, maybe even four times. And yeah, in the summer I was probably a little smelly. But everyone sweats constantly in the summer in South Africa and body odor is not really a problem so it didn’t really matter. My hair certainly looked greasy but black people don’t wash their hair very often and grease is good so no problem there. Prior to Peace Corps I was an every day bather no exceptions but when bucket bathing in 50 degree or colder weather became the norm, I cut back to every other day. This was the first few months of Peace Corps and I wasn’t quite ready to commit to anything more extreme. Once I got to site, I did have access to running water and a bathtub but if I wanted a warm bath I either had to a) heat up water with my 1.5 liter kettle enough times to get enough hot water to make a bath feasible, or turn on the “gieser”, my host family’s hot water heater, which they liked to use sparingly since it sucks electricity like crazy. Anyway, I cut back on the bathing even more. Well, if I was super sweaty I’d usually sponge myself off before bed but the hair didn’t get much attention and I got used to it.

Now that I’m home I’m realizing that showering every day and washing one’s hair every day is normal and expected. I do enjoy a nice hot shower but I just can’t see the point of showering every day. Not yet anyway. I just feel too clean. It’s already getting cooler and fall-like so I don’t really sweat unless I workout and I only workout every other day so hence, I only shower every other day. I admitted this to my friends (thinking this was a fairly reasonable thing to do) and got a lot of shocked and disgusted looks and comments like “uhh, you’re not in Africa anymore…” Oh well, I’m realizing more and more I’m just a little crazy by Iowan standards.