Good Hygiene

I just stepped out of the shower. Of course, another trickle of cold water. And this shower was my third shower since I've been in Ghana (a week and one day). I bet you can guess how good I smelled before I washed off :) On top of that, I realized a few days ago that if I want to have clean clothes, I'm going to have to hand wash them in the sink or the shower! Sooooo, I've been wearing dirty dirty clothes a lot. Pretty much any clothes are fair game as long as they don't look dirty. That means that I've probably worn some of my dark articles of clothes for at least three full days each, and they are getting to smell rank. Things get dirty quickly here because, well, the environment is dirty! We spend all day working in churches with dirt floors, walking around on dirt streets, and sweating like dogs. I have never been quite so unclean in my life, but since everyone else is gross too, it's not really so bad. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel glorious to be clean right now, though!

I also haven't been able to brush my teeth for a day or two because I ran out of water! Of course, the local water is un-drinkable, so we have to go out and buy huge bags of 28 smaller water baggies. The primary way that people here drink sanitary water is by buying these small 500 mL baggies of sanitary water, biting off the corner of the bag, and sucking the water out. These little plastic baggies are probably the primary piece of trash that you can find on the streets, but overall, people are reasonably good about throwing trash out. "Keep Ghana clean," is what people cry when they see someone litter.

Another interesting thing about litter is how sodas are dispensed. Coke, sprite, and fanta are the common sodas around here, and if you ever buy one of them from a vendor, you are expected to stick around and give the glass bottle back when you are done. They then send the bottle back to be refilled, and so glass bottles are recycled perfectly! It's a pretty cool idea, and encourages you to hang around and talk to the store owners while you drink your soda.

Oh yeah, and I've decided to break blog posts down into smaller piece that pertain to different topics! That way I won't just write one giant post today :) As you can tell, this post was about things pertaining to sanitation. Sweeeet. Oooo, and it just started raining outside my window. Ah, a lazy rainy Sunday.