When you wake up for work or school in the morning, do you
climb into a piping hot shower? Is it so hot that you must turn on the cold water
to keep it from scalding your tender skin? Maybe on a lazy Sunday you like to
enjoy a warm bath filled with so much soap that you can apply Santa-like,
bubble beards to your face? I know growing up I could take as long a shower as
I wanted. And it was steaming every time. In college, I would turn the dorm
showers on full blast when I was sick creating a steam room to clear out my
sinuses.
I am curious to know the statistics on the percentage of
people around the world who are able to take even daily showers, let alone
showers that make you sweat. I imagine people who live like this do not care if
their pits smell a bit rotten or if their feet blend in with the ground. Then
there are people living in “developed” countries who take their showers for
granted. This may seem like outwards criticism to ungrateful lads and lasses
who enjoy such luxuries as warm showers, but I am no more innocent than the
rest. I have lived in a place where showers were not hot. But, it was the
tropics so a cool shower was often the most refreshing event in one’s day. I
could have never imagined living somewhere cold and having to take cold showers.
Until now that is.
The past month we, along with about 15 other vans full of
pickers or aspiring pickers, have been living at a rest area, or two rest areas
rather. We trade off between the two in order to keep the local council officer
at bay. One of these rest areas comes complete with a shower. Rumors circulated
the rest area that the showers were warm up until a few days before we arrived.
And so rumors they stayed. There was no issue with a cold shower while the lows
stayed in the high teens (~60 F) because at night when we got off work it was
still hot enough to enjoy a cold shower. When the temperatures started to drop
to less than 10 (~40 F), things got a bit interesting. Gayndah has a climate
very similar to a desert – cold as long as the sun is down and hot as soon as
the sun hits your face in the morning. So, we work all day in the scorching sun
until sun down, then head to the one grocer in town, just before it closes, and
make our way to the rest area. It’s dark and it’s cold by this time. After a full
day of crawling around in trees, getting squirted with smashed “man juice,” getting
slapped in the face with pesticide covered branches, squashing spiders that
hang down from the brim of your hat, the first thing you want to do is clean
off. But, the last thing you want to do is take a cold shower and step out into
the cold air.
Before my shower I generally go for a run, not for exercise,
but to get the blood flowing, always hoping that the shower is unoccupied. Then
I stand under the shower head, build up the courage, take one deep breath, and
close my eyes. I will spare you the grim details of a cold shower, as I am sure
everyone has had a cold shower, or jumped in a cold river before. But every
single day? It tests one’s persistence to the max.
The reason I write about showers in such detail is because
of what occurred 2 days ago. I walked into the shower, and piping hot water
streamed out. When I stepped under the magical cascade, a huge, pure smile
swept across my face. This was no ordinary smile. It was one of those smiles
that starts at your feet and rushes uncontrollably up to your cheeks and jaws. The
smile warmed my body even more than the warm water itself. It is then I thought
about the people who never have showered in their lives. I pictured the people
of villages high up in the mountains of Pakistan or Nepal who may have never
heard of a shower. I can only picture their faces of disbelief and bewilderment
if they were to read this post. At the same time I picture any huge suburb of
any city in the US, millions of hot showers, almost completely unnoticed.
Maybe, the next shower you take, as the water flows over
your closed eyes, picture someone who has never taken a shower. Or, try to picture
myself, with my gigantic smile of pure joy. Hopefully, at least this one shower
may be as enjoyable as my last 3 showers have been.
