I’ve become quite accustomed over the last year to bucket showers, which I use not only while visiting villages upcountry but also in my own (and otherwise rather cushy) Freetown house. (For the uninitiated, a bucket shower is where you literally wash yourself from a large bucket, usually using a smaller bowl or tub to pour the water over your head and body.)
In fact, I’ve come to prefer a good bucket shower to a dribbly overhead shower: the rush of water pouring over your head at once is much more satisfactory than a feeble stream of water from a rusty showerhead.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, the hardest part of your body (by far) to wash without running water is your hands. One hand must be holding the bowl and pouring water, leaving just one hand to soap and rub and rinse itself.
A common solution is for someone to help you wash your hands. Before a meal in local homes or eating spots, particularly upcountry, someone will turn up with a teapot-shaped plastic jug or small bowl. You soap your hands and they’ll pour the water over them – into a bucket or onto the dirt ground – while you rub them clean.
It’s rather a nice ritual. Children pour water for their parents. Friends do so for one another. Cleansing is a shared experience.
As I struggled with my one-handed hand-washing the other night, I realized that the luxury of modernity – running water – has eliminated this need to ever have someone help you wash your hands.
Somehow, that seems like a bit of a loss.
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