Jurassic Bath
Against all odds, I have my first bath in Kajulu — in pitch blackness
I can’t remember the last time I wrote by candle light. On the cement sill behind me are a lantern and two candles. I am sitting angled so that my wrist doesn’t throw its shadow over my words. Outside it is inky black, the silence broken by the chirp of Kajulu’s crickets and bats, the alarmed shrieks of nightjars, and the grunts and dung-thuds of Oby’s donkeys grazing by the latrine in the back.
I have been thinking, naturally, about electricity and water, two things I always assume will be at hand in my less inconvenient life in Bangkok city. In the week before I left Thailand for Kenya, the water pressure in all our bathrooms dropped mysteriously. How it outraged us. We made no end of phone calls to the building’s manager, demanding instant attention and redress.
Where I will sleep this evening, however, rain water is captured in large black PVC tanks — and that is the supply for the rest of the year. There is also borehole that brings up sweetish spring water, also stored in a tank, but the water table is seasonal and erratic.
To give you an idea of how dramatically unfamiliar life can become when you cannot take electricity and water for granted, let me describe my first shower at Kajulu. It made me sharply aware of the small things I take for granted while showering — a place to keep the soap, a towel at hand, hooks to hang clothes, a controllable hands-free stream of water from a showerhead, a clean place to stand, and some light in which to conduct the entire operation.
My bed is in Oby’s ‘hut’, a functional cement-floored structure some fifty feet away from Mama Salome’s. Although the walls have light switches in readiness for the stima (electricity) that will surely come one day, there is no such wishful thinking about piped water. There is no bathroom where I live. Showering means opening the back door and stepping out into the backyard.
But first we must fetch the water from Mama Salome’s house. A pail that once contained paint has been filled with water. Holding that in one hand and a lantern in the other, an Eveready torch shining out of my armpit, I tread the open darkness between the two houses, trying to avoid the dungballs of Oby’s various farm animals.
Reaching my house, I set both bucket and lantern on the ground and fumble with my keys, and finally the screeching the metal door yields.
The backdoor is opened as well, the pail of water placed just outside. Torchlight reveals that some night insects have decided it is a good time to swim in my bath water, so I fish them out carefully using an enamel mug.
Where to place the soap? There is no soap dish handy, indeed there is no ledge at man-height. The only surfaces are the uneven and rounded tops of several huge boulders embedded in the backyard, making it look like a moonscape. But they rise no more than knee high. I bend and grope the rough surface until I find a horizontal depression in the stone that can cradle a bar of slippery soap.
Since there are no clothes hooks, I must not only undress within but also I will have to return to my room, dripping water, for my change of clothes. I do what I must and then, clad only in my crocs, step out under the stars. I am lit only by the dim light and shadows of the lantern by the doorway.
I bathe carefully, rooted to my spot, knowing that even this won’t prevent mud and grit from infiltrating between my feet and my sandals. My first contact with cold water makes me gasp, and I rapidly follow it with several more mugfuls just to get it over with. I use the water in a trickle, knowing that the pail must also bathe me in the morning. Each time I dip in to draw out a mugful, the water gets soapier from my hands — tomorrow’s bath will have built in suds. The one-trickle bath requires that the stream aimed at the top of the skull be allowed to wash over the rest of the body as well on its way down.
Done efficiently, the entire body can be cleared of soap in four or five mugs of water.
My nocturnal, open air bath ends with a warm glow as blood rushes back to the skin surface. The soap, still intact in its cache in the rock, is returned wet into its wrapper, the pail is brought in, and the metal door is dragged close and bolted. I pad through the dark house leaving a trail of cold drops to where my clothes await.
I felt like someone who had conceived, planned and implemented a complex project. A bath against all odds in a place not designed for them. Almost a Jurassic bath.