The Two Minute Shower

There are many ups and down to living on a ship (especially one as special as the Africa Mercy) but one thing that I have unwillingly adjusted to is the '2 minute shower rule'. Now to some of you, you might be saying that 2 minutes sounds like more than enought time for a good shower, but for me, it means giving up one of my favorite things in the morning. In the past, I was usually good for at least 10 minutes under the water, more if I just need some time to wake up.

Before we left the Canary Islands in May, the Captain made the announcement that we would begin to conserve fresh water because we were not sure of the supply here in Liberia. This meant one load of wash per week per person (not too bad), paying attention to how much water we were using for teeth brushing, hand washing, etc and finally the 2 minute (or less) shower. Some people out there might be wondering how a woman can get through everything in 2 minutes and let me say that it has been a challenge. You turn on the water for about 20 seconds to get wet, turn off, shampoo hair and soap up body, rinse for 40 seconds, conditioner in hair, soap and more parts that need it, wash face and then rinse it all off in another minute. Shaving is something that I have not really figured out in the 2 minutes - usually that is a sink thing where I hopfully am not using as much water. I have never taken so many showers were I counted the seconds that I had the water running :) If I don't count, I have found myself just standing under the water because it feels so good - especially last Thursday when the air conditioning was down for a couple days and we finally got a taste of what Africa is really like. The Captain claims that his record is 40 seconds and someone at one of the NGOs here claimed that they were down to 30. He thinks we should be working on breaking this record, but I don't think I am going to worry about it.