My Daily Morning Dance

Water is scarce in the desert. This fact has been both very obvious to me (growing up in the Mojave desert of California) and very abstract (never has it's scarcity affected my daily life; if I needed water, well, there's the tap, the bottle, the dispenser on the fridge, etc.). But every morning in Antofagasta, I'm reminded of this simple fact of life. Shocked by it even.

Not just water, but fruits, vegetables, wine, certain types of meat - all imports - are expensive in Antofagasta. It's a pretty expensive city in general, mainly because the copper mining in the region is so gangbusters that there's just a lot of money (plata) in people's pockets. This really sucks for a volunteer on a once-every-two-months stipend of $120 USD. But I digress.

Water is too be used sparingly in the city because it is so expensive. It's not uncommon to see toilets in public restrooms with stale pee in the bowl. It's a waste of a flush, you know? Unlike the U.S., where we have an abundance of all kinds of resources (and where I also feel like we waste A LOT), Chile has no choice but to conserve it's resources. Waste not, because you don't have all that much to begin with.

Oh, yes, but my mornings. I have to wake up at 6:30 every day so that I can make it to my bus stop by 7:20. After I manage to get my feet out from under the warmth of my bedsheets, I walk downstairs to the califone (hot water heater) turn it on and run the kitchen faucet to pre-heat the water (otherwise it takes a good 15 minutes for the water to get hot in the shower). And once I'm finally in the shower - well, here's the rub. The califone has two modes: Make Water Hotter OR Off. It cannot sustain an average level of warmth. Once it's turned on it can only make the water hotter and hotter. And when you try and add some cold water to balance it out, the califone seems to think that you no longer want ANY hot water at all and simply shuts off. So the two extremes of my shower are scalding hot or freezing cold.

My first morning in Antofagasta, I simply didn't realize the califone had to be turned on and I experienced one of the coldest showers of my adult life (to give you an idea of how cold, at night it has gotten as low as 6℃ [or 42℉]). That was followed by the second coldest shower of my life the next morning when I accidentally turned the califone OFF instead of ON. D'oh. My current system involves catching the 20 second sweet spot when the califone is just kicking in and the water is going from freezing to scalding. It's a two-phase process as the first sweet spot gives me enough time to soap - then I have to turn on the cold water, go back to zero and start over. The second sweet spot is enough time to shampoo/condition. As Kanye would say, #ITSAPROCESS. But it'll do for the next 5 months.

…Yeah, it'll do.