“Did someone tell you about the water?” asked the teenager at the hotel front desk last night. I shook my head with a blank look on my face. He explained there would be no running water from this morning at 8am until tomorrow 7am. I shrugged at the news: it’s only for one day, no biggie. We’ve been drinking bottled water anyway – a precaution to reduce exposure to local bacteria.
It’s 5pm and I’ve been soaking in my own juice all day. Ambient temperature: 85 degrees. Humidity: 75%. I can smell my own body odor, and it’s not a pleasant experience. Doing my martial arts conditioning was probably a tad foolish in such circumstances but I’ve been sports-deprived for the last few days: the craving for a workout defeated the fear of armpit scent. Now there is no escape: I must shower not only for myself but also for anyone within a 10-foot radius, which can quickly become a crowd in a dense city like Cartagena.
I ask the staff for a bucket of water. They stocked-up on the precious liquid in big barrels so they can provide for any essential guest needs such as filling-up the toilet tank or making ablutions. Five minutes later I stand in the shower with my feet in a bucket full of water. How exactly am I supposed to do this? I decide to use an empty bottle to pour the water over my head. It should work fine.
These past few days I’ve been shampooing with soap: I was dumb enough to pack the shampoo in a suitcase that is now inside the car, within a sealed container about to board on a cargo ship. Fortunately yesterday I bought a bottle of shampoo at the corner store. Baby shampoo: the only thing that didn’t seem too chemical. After wetting my hair using the empty bottle and the bucket, I squeeze some shampoo. The liquid is sticky and it doesn’t foam at all. I pour some more. Now my scalp feels greasy. What kind of shampoo is this? Assailed by doubt, I re-read the label carefully: baby oil!
A few minutes and three bars of soap later, the oil has almost disappeared and I am almost clean. I catch my reflection in the mirror: my hair has the same gloss as the stars in old black and white movies. I wonder if they used baby oil as well.
Cedric, 02/09/2012
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