So as you can see in the picture to the left, the bathroom which is currently "ours" has a no-shower-stall shower. You can see the shower head on the wall back there. The space where my husband is crouching is the space where we usually stand while we shower. The water runs toward the spot I stood to take this picture. There is a drain in the floor there. Luckily for me, there is also a small step in the floor, which keeps the shower water from running all over the entire bathroom floor- so the floor by the toilet and sink stays dry. And because we pull that curtain closed when we shower, the toilet stays dry too.
Now, here you can see what' hiding behind curtain number 1- it's Beni! She had to have a bath today because 1) it was so hot and at one point her entire head was WET (not damp, not moist, WET) with sweat, and 2) because we had to go house hunting this afternoon, she did not get a second nap, and therefore turned into a holy terror and was only calmed during house hunting by playing with a pen and drawing all over herself. Nice. So bath it was. The good thing is, if there is one place this child is happy, it's in the water. So even if it's only 15 minutes, she's a happy camper while she's in there. Another little factoid about living in Laos... see the box on the wall by the shower? That is the water heater. The shower is connected to the water heater. The bath is not. So to fill Beni's bath, we have to point the shower at the bath (or just hang it down into there) and let it run. Not really an issue, just takes a lot longer. The bathroom sink does not have hot water. Neither does the kitchen sink. Also the washer is not connected to hot water.
Speaking of which... see all those diapers hanging all over the bathroom??? Yeah. It's been raining almost non-stop since the second day we were here. That's 4 days now (and yes, it's still raining as I write!). Since some of the laundry that I washed and hung outside on Saturday is still not fully dry (it's Wednesday!), I decided I had to hang these diapers inside in the hopes that they will dry faster. We have diapers everywhere. It'll be interesting to see how this cloth-diapering-in-Laos thing goes... between the no hot water to wash with and the no dryer to dry with through this rainy season...well, we'll just see. We'll keep on keeping on...but Beni is in a disposable tonight. We only have so many of the more quickly drying Flip diapers, and the one downside to the BumGenius All-in-ones is that they take FOREVER to dry in good conditions... I am going to watch them closely to make sure they don't mold here! Ick.
Our first day house hunting was a total bomb. We didn't see anything that either of us really liked- and some of the houses we saw were immediate, absolute "no!"s for each of us. I will go on my own with Beni tomorrow to see some more houses... we've given the agent a bit better idea of what we might be looking for, so, let's see what she comes up with tomorrow. Wish us luck!
Now to end on a super happy note:
4 comments:
So probably a stupid question... but why don't they just stand in the bath tub like you'd see here instead of letting the water run across the room?
Best of luck with the house hunting and the clothes/diaper drying!
When I told my mom I wanted to cloth diaper, she was totally opposed to it because all she remembers is freezing cold nights where the electricity would go out (my dad was on a business trip) and she had no clean diapers. She hung them outside to dry. When she went to bring them in, they were frozen solid! Now that we are full time diapering (well, except for an occasional midnight disposable) my mom is awed by how easy it is. She has said that having a washer/dryer that work and lots of sunny days so we can line dry things helps. I feel for your rain - yuck! I hope things get dry-er!
I feel for you on the diaper drying. The humidity is so high that moisture from the diapers cannot evaporate (so snail's pace drying time). Your IL's shower reminds me of the showers in Oman and (you guessed it!) Bombay. They didn't have any boundaries either. I guess that's just the style over there?
OK, this may sound like a really weird question, but do they have sprinkler bidets and the hole-in-the-ground squatter toilets there? I'm just curious! And I wish we had sprinkler bidets here in the States. Well, I know they're available here, but they don't come standard anywhere, and you pretty much have to install them yourself if you want them.
Brenda- I don't know why they don't do the whole set up the same... I guess they just like it different. But WE don't stand in the tub because the shower head is too far from the tub to really be under it and stand in the tub. Also, because we do have the shift in the level of the floor, the WHOLE bathroom doesn't get wet, so it is ok by me.
Ang, I know a lot of people have been surprised by modern diapers! We are lucky- and lucky to have washers and dryers as well!
Suzanne, we have not seen any squatter toilets. All bathrooms here have what I would now call a diaper sprayer by the toilet, which is of course, not generally meant for diaper spraying. But I have not seen any bidets either. I can't say that I ever use the sprayer for anything other than spraying diapers, and I have never used a bidet (even when I have lived somewhere where I had one).
Post a Comment