Realities of Living Abroad

I realize that these aren't realities for all American expats living abroad...after all, many Americans that live in other countries actually have money and don't have to live in the same poverty-like situations that I often find myself in. But my years of living in several different countries have helped me become accustomed to a few unpleasant realities of life.

First of all, my showers are no longer "sacred time." I have always regarded my shower time as a time to think about the day and everything I needed to get done, letting the hot water wash over me for way too long (as my mother, and her hot water bill while I was in high school, can attest!). Shower time was my time, and it was the first thing I did every morning.

However, I was in for some fun surprises when I got to Jordan, where water is extremely limited and most people shower 1-2 times a week. We got water once or twice a week delivered to our house, and it was stored on little water barrels on top of the roof. Once you used all the water in your barrel, you literally had no water until the water truck came again.

I lived with a very rich family--we had 4 water tanks, one for each floor!

This, of course, made my showers incredibly short. I was terrified of running out of water--the thought of going days without a shower in the middle of the blazing hot summer just did not appeal to me. I would turn on the water, count to 10 as I got wet, and then quickly turn it off, soap up and shampoo, turn on the water and count to 20, turn it off, condition my hair, and then turn on the water, count to 20 again, and then turn it off.

(Did I mention that for half of my time in Jordan the water in my house wasn't heated? So I did all that in freezing cold water. Oh, and I didn't have a towel for a few weeks, so I just used my dirty shirt from the day before to dry off. Yeah. I'm pretty classy.)

My shower experience in Taiwan was another fun story. The bathrooms in some of my apartments (I lived in 4 different apts) were built "Taiwanese style," with a toilet, a sink, and a shower head. There was a drain in the middle of the floor, and we just showered in the middle of the bathroom, trying not to get the toilet too wet. (It wasn't too bad, though, because the bathrooms were about the size of a normal shower anyway!)

In another apartment, I actually had a bathtub (but no shower curtain), which was a real luxury. However, our water was heated by gas tanks, which we had to buy every few months or so. In order to buy the tanks, we had to call the company, know how to ask for gas tanks in Chinese (this one took me several days to get down), and be home for the next hour so you could be there when the person delivered the tank. Did I mention that you also had to have a few thousand Taiwanese kuai in cash to pay for the tank? Oh, and as missionaries we weren't allowed to call landlines from our cellphones, and we weren't allowed to use the landlines in our apartments to call landlines. So if we wanted to call a business (like the gas company), we had to go outside, find a pay phone, call the gas company, order the tank, and wait 30-60 minutes for them to deliver it.

This explanation might help you see why I once let 3 weeks go by without buying another gas tank. I figured cold showers weren't nearly as painful as completing that whole process (and we really didn't have time)!

My showers now are a whole new experience. I'm still not completely aware of the connection between my water pressure and the Israeli government, but I have heard that our water in the West Bank is controlled by the Israelis (which is a rather ambiguous term--I'm not sure who, exactly, these "Israelis" are that control our water--perhaps the water company? Perhaps the government?), but for some reason for the past week and a half I haven't had any water pressure.

Ok. That's a lie. I have enough water pressure for a small stream to come out of the faucet, but not enough for any to come out of the showerhead. Which means one thing: bucket showers. I keep a bowl in the shower and each morning I stand in the freezing cold waiting for the bowl to fill up with water, dump that small amount on my body, and then repeat the process. I'm thinking of chopping off all of my hair, which would certainly make the shower experience much shorter!

Heating. Since I so often live in such wretchedly hot places, indoor heating shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. The buildings and apartments are designed to keep cool in the summer...and stay freezing in the winter! There isn't any indoor heating in Taiwan (I only saw it in foreigners' apartments) and they don't have the kind of space heaters that blow air--only those kind that have coils or rods that heat up. So whatever is right next to them stays warm--but anything more than 5 feet away stays frigidly cold. Add that to the fact that I was always wet, and that's a very cold winter! I almost learned to love the feeling of putting on wet leather shoes each morning before going outside to proselyte, but not quite.

I didn't have a problem with heating in Jordan since I was there in the summer, but now that it is winter in the Holy Land, I have discovered a strange phenomenon: my body temperature, which always used to run 10-15 degrees hotter than everyone else,  has adjusted to these hot climates and I am freezing all the time. This is a very foreign feeling for me, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I have been in denial for several weeks now, but a few days ago I finally put on my winter coat in my apartment and suddenly it was much easier to face life. My apartment isn't heated (most Arab apartments, especially in the West Bank, aren't), and it is built to stay cool on the hottest days. This means high ceilings and tile floors, and everything is made out of stone.

The first night in my new apartment in Beit Sahour I literally thought I was going to freeze to death. I couldn't sleep for hours, and then suddenly I realized that I could utilize something I had never had to use before: my covers. I always sleep on top of my comforter, using just a small blanket when I sleep (even in the winter). I often sleep with my window cracked open during the winter because I get too hot! But that first night in my apartment, after several hours of freezing, I finally got inside of the covers and guys, it was life changing. Thankfully, I have a small space heater in my room now (but again, not one that blows air!) so I don't have to sleep in my covers, but I do walk around my apartment with a snowboarding coat on!

Thankfully it's not this cold! This is from the inside of my "heated" apartment last year in Provo.

Air Conditioning. It doesn't exist. At least not in the places I have lived! When I was in Jordan I put a fan right next to my bed and had it blow on my face all night. I would sprawl out on my bed, trying to get in a position where the greatest area of my skin would be hit by the fan, and then pass in and out of consciousness all night, trying to stay cool. Many days the temperature was between 37-41 degrees Celsius, and I just wanted to die.

Once winter was over in Taiwan, summer hit with a vengeance. Central air conditioning didn't exist, so lots of people just had swamp-cooler-like things that blew cold, wet air. I rode my bike everywhere in Taiwan, even in the blistering heat, and to keep cool I would just think about diving into a huge snowbank in a swimming suit or what it would be like to sleep in a walk-in fridge. During my morning scripture study I would sit on the tile floor and try to cool down my body temperature a little.

With the high levels of humidity and blazing heat, I sweat more than I ever had up to that point. I would walk into peoples' homes to teach them about the gospel of Jesus Christ (which is what we did as missionaries) and they would hand me a box of kleenexes so I could wipe off the sweat before I dripped all over their floor.

Yeah. It was gross. I threw away all of my clothes when I came home because I don't think any amount of washing could get the smell of mold, mildew, and sweat out of them!

I have several more things to write, but this post has already taken several days to publish so I'll leave the rest for another day. But I hope that after reading this post, you are a bit more grateful for small comforts like airconditioning, heating, and water pressure!

PS--this post is not supposed to come across as only complaining. After all, I do choose to live in these places! Rather, I hope that you got some enjoyment and a few chuckles from reading about my experiences!