The Little Things

The longer we are in Honduras, the more aware I am of all of the little things in my life that have changed. All the tiny bits and pieces of living that have no way of remaining the same, try as I might to hold onto them, all as a result of merely being in a foreign country.

The most constant reminder of this is the simple act of washing my hands. It’s an easy thing, right? Universal worldwide, right? Soap, water, nothing to it. Right? What, don’t they sell soap in Honduras? The catch, actually, is the water. Of course they sell soap in Honduras!

In the US, I’m all about saving – save plastic tubs to reuse later, save plastic bags to use for garbage, save corks for some project that will never happen later, and definitely save water (unless I’m taking a nice, warm shower). In an effort to save water, my US hand-washing routine consists of squirting soap into my hand, then turning the faucet on and washing my hands. It’s only a little bit of water, but in my crazy recycling brain, every drop counts.

In Honduras, after the 5^th time of standing in front of the sink with soap on my hands and no water running out of the faucet, I realized this routine was no longer going to work for me. Water coming out of the faucet is dependent on too many factors to reliably flow out every time one turns it on, especially at school. Is someone running an outside faucet? Were too many toilets flushed at one time? Did the school just have a water balloon fight? Is this the day of a regularly scheduled Wednesday power outage that everyone seemingly knows about except the US teachers and has the power been out since 7 AM? Is the moon full or has Mercury gone into retrograde? My new routine here is to turn the faucet on first, try not to jump when air explodes out of the water line, and wait in hope that at least a trickle of water will come out. Then, I rub my hands briskly under the water in order to get some cleaning done in case the water suddenly disappears. Finally, I add soap and wash quickly so as to mitigate any risk of running out of water before all of the soap is rinsed off of my hands. Then, I dry my hands off on the ragged cloth hand towel provided in all of the bathrooms except the girls’ bathroom in the secondary school (what did the girls do to deserve this?) There’s no paper towel waste here!

A recent fill-up of the cisterns on school property with water pumped from the nearby small river prompts some last questions about hand washing – if the water is brown, do your hands really get clean? They feel better, they look better, but are they really clean?

I never knew a simple task like washing my hands would be an indicator of a major life change.

PS. Thanks for the underwear.