Looks different this time. The floor is concrete instead of wooden and there are no chickens running around. There is no five year old Honduran boy trying to peak in the curtain and the door is actually wooden. Angie put a rock in front of it so it wouldn’t fly open.
I’ve got a couple of beat up gallon jugs; one yellow and one white, one cold and one hot. Kind of nice, I can mix them just to the right temperature and there is a tad bit more water this time than there was five months ago on that mountain. There’s an oversized plastic bowl for me to do my mixing. An orange plastic coffee mug to do the pouring.
I’m a little nervous because the shampoo isn’t getting soapy. With only one of these showers every three or so days, you really want to get your hair clean. Especially when you’ve got this in between length where no ponytail is possible and the cowlicks are out of control from three nights worth of bed head. Analyzing the amount of water, I think I’ve got enough to do a second wash.
Shoot. Where do I put my soapy loofah in order wash the conditioner out of my hair before lathering up? With the smells of the squatty potty wafting into my nostrils, mixing the sweet smell of clean soap with, well, you know, I am convinced that if my loofah touches anything it will now smell like that. Find a jagged corner of the door to hang it on and have a sudden realization.
This is normal.
The last time, everything seemed so brand new. It was a well thought out process that involved learning how to take a shower like these folks who don’t have access to running water. This time it was just going through the motions and getting it done.
I had become a bucket shower expert.
But more than that, my current life kind of resembles how used to this kind of thing I’ve gotten. After seven months of being out here on the road, I’ve developed tired eyes and an instinct for figuring out non-normal things.
There are so many situations I find myself in that have never happened and will probably not happen often once I return home in a few months. But it’s moments like the discovery that washing your body with a tiny amount of water has become normal where you ask yourself, “What is my life?”
And with seven months down, you can’t remember a time where there weren’t at least eight people outside staring out into the abyss at the crack of dawn, asking Jesus what He has for them.
Seven months of different types of showers, beds, foods, sea-levels, weather, smells, water, haircuts, long-skirts, ratty t-shirts, stomach issues and thread bracelets.
But there is one consistent: Seeing your teammate soaking Him up every single morning because in order to get through another day of being uncomfortable, we’ve all finally figured out you can’t do it without Him.
Heck, I can’t even get through the combination of fruity shampoo smell and squatty potty without asking God to please dull my insane sense of smell. And then thanking Him for making my life so dang radical.
