Isn’t it wonderful when you discover a simple trick in life that makes everything at least 1000 times easier (if not more?). It’s a life changing. It’s miraculous. Sure, maybe everyone already knew about it except for you, but, man, you are really glad to learn it. I think discovering the Copy/Paste function on a computer is a similar sort of discovery. Think back to when you made that discovery. Suddenly, you don’t have to type and retype things. And, if you are like me, you discovered the copy/paste function long before learning how to type, and so moving that paragraph took at least 30 minutes or more. Clearly, discovering copy/paste has saved us all hours upon hours of our lives.

I liken my discovery of the river in my village to the copy/paste discovery. Ok, I must admit, I didn’t actually “discover” this trick. My wonderful, magnificent neighbor came over and, in the kindest way possible, asked if I had just carried yet another bucket of water across the village (I had). She also asked, very tactfully, if I had bathed yet today (I hadn’t). Really, it was perfect timing on her part, as she caught me just as I was scowling at a wet, soapy pile of clothes and a half full bucket of water. It turns out that I had been wasting a lot of time and energy over the last week in Namatakula.

I have been in my village Namatakula for just about two weeks now. The first 5 days, the weather was beautiful, and Namatakula resembled a little piece of heaven on earth (aside from a few waste management issues). The sun was shining, the Pacific was glorious, the palm trees were singing in the wind, and my friend had just invited me to pick bananas and papaya from her trees anytime I wanted. Pure Paradise. Then it started raining. No, it started dumping. Each drop was equivalent to a bucketful of water. The first day, no problem; I baked scones and read a book. This is the life, I thought. The second day, the water in my house stopped working. No problem, I could just get it from the tap outside. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh days, however, the water on my whole side of the village stopped working, and I had to go across the road to get the water. Because I only had one bucket, I had to make the trip several times a day (or, some unfortunate kid who happened to be hanging out at my house had to make the trip…oh, the joys of being the cool, new person). It was a wet and muddy, very long trip. In addition to the miserableness of that, I had to figure out how to do everything from washing my dishes and clothes to washing myself to flushing the toilet with bucket water; all the while using as little water as possible so I didn’t have to go back outside. Oh, and the water was brown. If you hadn’t guessed already, it’s been a bit of a rough week. I’m bad enough at washing clothes by hand on a wash board as it is, the added concern of trying to save water meant that probably only ¼ of the soap and none of the dirt came out. Plus, because it was raining, my clothes didn’t dry. And bucket showers….I’m not really sure if I have experienced many things much less pleasant than huddling in a cold, grimy shower room (they don’t have tubs here, your shower consists of a small room with a concrete floor, tiled walls, and a shower head) trying to do a decent job of scrubbing off mud. A bowlful of ice cold water in one hand and a bar of soap with marks that suspiciously resemble rat teeth does not make for a happy bathing experience.

You can imagine my glee then, when my neighbor brought me, my bucket of wet, soapy clothes, and a bar of soap down to the river, and showed me the shortcut of the century. I like to call it the copy/paste of Namatakula. I can wash both myself and my clothes in the river! Wahoo! Not only do I not have to cart a full bucket to my house for bathing and then another few buckets for laundry, but bathing in the river is fun! You just wrap a sulu around yourself, grab a bar of soap (preferably without toothmarks) and jump in. No wonder they use the same word for swimming and bathing here. Kids are playing on one side, ladies are doing laundry, the ocean is just on the other side of the sandbar….paradise has returned! The sun is shining again in Namatakula! (no really, the sun did finally come out again.) A word to the wise though, if you happen to be washing underwear in the river, make sure you hold on to it tight. That current will sweep those suckers away and send them straight out into the big blue Pacific.