Bringing showers to the world!

So I figured it might be a good idea to post some pictures of the place we are staying in Palangka Raya, it is basically the half-way house for researchers coming from Jakarta and headed to the forest camp Tuanan or researchers coming from Tuanan for a rest or to get medical treatment. The house is large with five bedrooms, but for some reason all the girls are housed in one room together and the guys have separate rooms. There is a nice porch where we eat all of our meals so we don’t encourage the swarms of ants to come into the house any more than they already do. 

And we have a shared “bathroom” called the mandi. Using the mandi was a whole new experience for me. There is not a toilet like we are used to in the U.S. there is a picture below so you get the idea. We use the water from the mandi (a tub that we fill with water) and the bucket to scoop the water to ‘flush’ the toilet. 

There is also not a regular shower. The way you are supposed to bathe is by using the same bucket and pouring water over yourself, lathering, and repeat with the water. Now this works but I couldn’t help wondering why there was not a shower in the mandi when all it really needed was a tube hooked to the faucet and then to a shower head so when you turn on the water it comes our the shower head instead of into the mandi. So with oodles of time on my hands while we wait out paperwork one of the other girls and I went about finding all the parts and pieces to do an experiment. And if I have accomplished nothing else with my time here I can say: “Hi, I’m Ricki and I am bringing showers to the World!” Enjoy the picture below of our fantastic creation (that works just like a real shower by the way).   :  )