There are a lot of un-magical moments and unglamorous chores to be done in life. Cleaning out the shower drain for example. I have to search for the pliers and pull out this drain cover thing to clean it every month or so. The water starts draining really slowly and then I am standing in the shower with my feet in dirty water and I know that the solution is a quick and simple one, but disgusting. Most of what gets stuck seems to be white people hair. Since I am the only white person in our apartment, I am the only one to blame (and the one who gets stuck with the gross job). I look at the amount of hair on the drain cover and wonder how I am not yet bald. Somehow I still have a very thick head of hair, like a hot blanket covering my head and neck in the heat.
Sometimes it seems like there are just days on end of things to do that are equally unexciting (though at least usually less yucky). Day after day of extreme heat and power cuts becomes really exhausting. And it’s just all of the little things that add up and then something suddenly becomes too much. The other evening, after the power had already been out for 5 hours that day, it cut again. It was around 8pm, so we had to do a pitch-black scramble for matches and candles. It was now at 95 degrees in the house and the fans were not moving. After having already endured 5 hours of being too hot and not having power I had just had enough for that day. “Can we please go stay in a hotel?” I asked Jean-Patrick. Nice hotels have generators that run during power cuts so there is always air-conditioning. They also have nice swimming pools and restaurants. Nice hotels in Bamako cost around $100 a night though, and we both knew that there wasn’t an extra $100 to be found in our budget. JP offered to bring one of the plastic lawn chairs in from the veranda and put it in the shower for me to sit on and let water fall on me. I didn’t take him up on that offer but instead went to sit and pout. When I focus on all of the crummy stuff – like the nasty hair in the drain – it is easy to sit and pout. It takes a conscious effort to remember and be thankful and change my focus to all of the good things – like a clean drain cover. I choose to make that effort today.
Sometimes it seems like there are just days on end of things to do that are equally unexciting (though at least usually less yucky). Day after day of extreme heat and power cuts becomes really exhausting. And it’s just all of the little things that add up and then something suddenly becomes too much. The other evening, after the power had already been out for 5 hours that day, it cut again. It was around 8pm, so we had to do a pitch-black scramble for matches and candles. It was now at 95 degrees in the house and the fans were not moving. After having already endured 5 hours of being too hot and not having power I had just had enough for that day. “Can we please go stay in a hotel?” I asked Jean-Patrick. Nice hotels have generators that run during power cuts so there is always air-conditioning. They also have nice swimming pools and restaurants. Nice hotels in Bamako cost around $100 a night though, and we both knew that there wasn’t an extra $100 to be found in our budget. JP offered to bring one of the plastic lawn chairs in from the veranda and put it in the shower for me to sit on and let water fall on me. I didn’t take him up on that offer but instead went to sit and pout. When I focus on all of the crummy stuff – like the nasty hair in the drain – it is easy to sit and pout. It takes a conscious effort to remember and be thankful and change my focus to all of the good things – like a clean drain cover. I choose to make that effort today.
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