splish splash
algeria is dirty. very, very dirty. and so am I, in spite of the fact that I showered last night.
part of the problem is that water is so scarce. algeria has no good sources of water - no Nile, no real river that runs without rainfall. so they conserve: here, everything's done by bucket and pan, because letting the tap run is a waste nobody can afford. dishes are washed in a small plastic tub of water, in very specific order: cups and glasses first, because they've got to be cleanest; then plates and bowls, which can be washed in water that's a little dirtier; then silverware; then pots and pans, which get washed in the dregs. ("You have a machine for the dishes, don't you?" asks my aunt, who every day after lunch washes the breakfast and lunch plates and after dinner scrubs the dinner dishes, pots and pans. and then, wistfully: "If I had a machine, I would leave everything for the end of the day.")
laundry's done by hand, too, in larger plastic tubs (some households have automatic machines, which are water-efficient but not very effective - clothes come out with better-smelling stains, pretty much), with harsh detergents that don't always rinse out in the one or two "rinse" cycles allotted. (clothes are separated, darks and whites, and hand-wrung and hung to dry. it's a workout - my aunt, who's tiny but so strong, can wring out more water with one powerful twist than I can in several pitiful squeezes.)
toilets, whether turkish or western, are all flushed via bucket - and not all western toilets come with seats attached, so the turkish-style ceramic holes in the ground turn out to be cleaner and more comfortable.
and showers are bucket baths, taken once or twice a week as necessary. it's chilly business - bathrooms aren't heated, although at my uncle's they set up an electric heater whenever somebody wants to bathe, and the hot water runs out pretty quickly. also, in my Oran uncle's house, there isn't a separate shower or bathtub per se - you kind of crouch in the middle of the bathroom and pour water over yourself, and then mop it down the center drain when you're done. (in El Bayadh, one of my uncles had both a tub and a large-capacity water heater, so one night I had space and hot water enough even to shave my legs, which at the time was just about the best feeling of my entire life.) for me, the amount of actual self-scrubbing that takes place is proportional to the amount of warm water at hand. so in oran, I've stayed kind of grubby.
the other bathing alternative is the hammam, the bathhouse where washing is also conducted via bucket, but where the air is steamy and comfortable and the water is scorching and abundant. I love the hammam, but I've only been once so far - my cousin takes me, so we go when she has time.
to save on laundry (I think), people wear the same clothes several days in a row - even sleep in them, sometimes. clothes are worn in layers - long johns under pajamas under shirts and jeans or housedresses, so the outer layers tend to stay fresher than the inner layers (algeria is the land of never-nudes: we peel off the outer layer at bedtime, sleep in the pjs and put the same clothes back on the next day - we do this til the odor becomes to much to take, and til perfume no longer hides it. me, I change my underwear daily, but I max out everything else.)
so I'm stinky, and my face is a war zone (me vs algeria; algeria is winning), but my spoiled american self is getting used to it. clean is relative, and it gets easy to not mind being dirty - or to know that your dishes aren't quite squeaky clean - when nobody else minds either.
the ones who suffer are those in the countryside, the people who make their livings off of crops and animal herding, algeria's essential but perennially fragile enterprises. water's become an especial problem this year; the rains came late, and the reservoir levels in this part of the country are so low they've started rationing water in and around Oran. it's going to be a hard spring.
and of course, the women suffer - the ones, like my aunt, to whom it falls to wash, scrub, cook, cleanse and prepare everything in the house without the luxury of spare water. it takes time, energy and lots of resourcefulness to run a house the way my aunt does. and a lot of huility to adapt. I'm working on that.
part of the problem is that water is so scarce. algeria has no good sources of water - no Nile, no real river that runs without rainfall. so they conserve: here, everything's done by bucket and pan, because letting the tap run is a waste nobody can afford. dishes are washed in a small plastic tub of water, in very specific order: cups and glasses first, because they've got to be cleanest; then plates and bowls, which can be washed in water that's a little dirtier; then silverware; then pots and pans, which get washed in the dregs. ("You have a machine for the dishes, don't you?" asks my aunt, who every day after lunch washes the breakfast and lunch plates and after dinner scrubs the dinner dishes, pots and pans. and then, wistfully: "If I had a machine, I would leave everything for the end of the day.")
laundry's done by hand, too, in larger plastic tubs (some households have automatic machines, which are water-efficient but not very effective - clothes come out with better-smelling stains, pretty much), with harsh detergents that don't always rinse out in the one or two "rinse" cycles allotted. (clothes are separated, darks and whites, and hand-wrung and hung to dry. it's a workout - my aunt, who's tiny but so strong, can wring out more water with one powerful twist than I can in several pitiful squeezes.)
toilets, whether turkish or western, are all flushed via bucket - and not all western toilets come with seats attached, so the turkish-style ceramic holes in the ground turn out to be cleaner and more comfortable.
and showers are bucket baths, taken once or twice a week as necessary. it's chilly business - bathrooms aren't heated, although at my uncle's they set up an electric heater whenever somebody wants to bathe, and the hot water runs out pretty quickly. also, in my Oran uncle's house, there isn't a separate shower or bathtub per se - you kind of crouch in the middle of the bathroom and pour water over yourself, and then mop it down the center drain when you're done. (in El Bayadh, one of my uncles had both a tub and a large-capacity water heater, so one night I had space and hot water enough even to shave my legs, which at the time was just about the best feeling of my entire life.) for me, the amount of actual self-scrubbing that takes place is proportional to the amount of warm water at hand. so in oran, I've stayed kind of grubby.
the other bathing alternative is the hammam, the bathhouse where washing is also conducted via bucket, but where the air is steamy and comfortable and the water is scorching and abundant. I love the hammam, but I've only been once so far - my cousin takes me, so we go when she has time.
to save on laundry (I think), people wear the same clothes several days in a row - even sleep in them, sometimes. clothes are worn in layers - long johns under pajamas under shirts and jeans or housedresses, so the outer layers tend to stay fresher than the inner layers (algeria is the land of never-nudes: we peel off the outer layer at bedtime, sleep in the pjs and put the same clothes back on the next day - we do this til the odor becomes to much to take, and til perfume no longer hides it. me, I change my underwear daily, but I max out everything else.)
so I'm stinky, and my face is a war zone (me vs algeria; algeria is winning), but my spoiled american self is getting used to it. clean is relative, and it gets easy to not mind being dirty - or to know that your dishes aren't quite squeaky clean - when nobody else minds either.
the ones who suffer are those in the countryside, the people who make their livings off of crops and animal herding, algeria's essential but perennially fragile enterprises. water's become an especial problem this year; the rains came late, and the reservoir levels in this part of the country are so low they've started rationing water in and around Oran. it's going to be a hard spring.
and of course, the women suffer - the ones, like my aunt, to whom it falls to wash, scrub, cook, cleanse and prepare everything in the house without the luxury of spare water. it takes time, energy and lots of resourcefulness to run a house the way my aunt does. and a lot of huility to adapt. I'm working on that.