Jerk Shower

I am currently not speaking to me excuse for a “shower.”  Ugh the nerve of that guy!  So I come home from the hospital earlier this week.  Side note, I finally convinced my mentor that I am perfectly capable of walking the 4 blocks from my hotel to the hospital this week.  I know he was just trying to help me out, but after sitting all day and staring at a computer a 15-minute walk can be the difference between insanity and pseudo-sanity.  At any rate, I walked home and I should also mention that I have never seen as much air pollution in a 4-block radius as I have here.  “I need my asthma spray!”  But seriously…I find myself wheezing every time I make this walk and have debated wearing a surgical mask on the walk if I didn’t already stand out like a sore thumb. 

Ok but for real, the damn shower!  So I get home and all I want is a hot shower.  As mentioned, there is a little box connected to the showerhead that apparently controls the hot water.  If the light on the box is on, the water is hot.  No light=ice cold water.  Don’t be fooled in thinking I have any control over this light.  I don’t.  So I get in the shower, tired and covered in African hospital and pollution and the water is hot.  Thank you shower box gods!  Oh but wait…just kidding.  I get maybe 30 seconds into this delicious hot shower before the light shuts off.  Cute shower box gods.  Real cute.  I take a deep breath, finishing getting my hair wet and shut the water off.  Sometimes if you just give the water a break it will decide to get warm again.  Sometimes.  I take this water hiatus to put a good amount of shampoo in my hair.  Since I am feeling particularly grimy I go ahead and really lather it on.  After a few minutes I try the water again.  Nothing.  Not hot water, not cold water, but NO water.  Umm excuse me?  The string of swear words that followed would have scared any rugby player or pirate.

In other news, I met our oldest ancestor Lucy last weekend.  She is very short, skinny, doesn’t talk much and lives in a glass box in a basement.  Rough life...or death I guess.  We also went to the Ethnological museum at Addis Ababa University.  It was a little bit more well done than Lucy’s home.  The AAU campus was gorgeous though. 

Last Sunday I was supposed to go to Entoto Mountain with my friend Liz who is a family medicine resident at UW and also working here.  I can’t help but mention that she is a year older than me and 5 years ahead of me in schooling.  Sigh.  At any rate, a friend of hers from her MPH program lives here in Addis.  Both of them have been very nice by including me in weekend outings and lunches and whatnot.  At any rate, we were going to go up the mountain, except for this whole rainy season thing.  It rains.  All.  The.  Time.  So instead I slept, read, and watched movies all day.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I spent a day doing that…maybe when I lived in Samoa.  There is something to be said for the fact that I have to leave America in order to get a day off.