Around the House

Some fun facts about things we encounter day-to-day that are a little out of the ordinary for us:

Water: Just like in Mexico, the common advice is: Don't drink the water. To combat this without buying truckloads of bottled water, many homes install a water purifier. (Of course, poorer people can't avoid drinking the water – but our American bodies are especially vulnerable because we've never been exposed to the microbs in the water.)* The water is filtered and then goes into this tank. As the tank fills, the water is also zapped by UV light to kill off any bacteria. Most people don't drink cold beverages here, so the water is left in the tank at room temperature. Before coming, I also read things about not even using tap water to brush your teeth. We have not gone that crazy-overboard.

*I don't claim to have any scientific knowledge about why that is or water safety or anything else…I'm just passing along what I've heard.

Electricity: I don't know enough about electricity to say too much about the differences between here and home. What I do know is that we have to use an adapter to plug in our American plugs (all of our devices have built in converters to account for the different voltage). ~There are two outlets in one - the top hole goes with the bottom two, and the middle two are a separate outlet~  The tricky part is that our adapters only have two prongs to plug in, but the third, top center prong has to be inserted in order to "open" the lower two holes in the outlet. This is overcome by jamming a pen into the top hole, and then inserting the adapter. Make sense? It sounds scary – Louie the Lightning Bug would be so disappointed (did you know he was on Facebook?) – but the switch to the left of the outlet controls the outlet, and we (usually) remember to kill the switch before inserting said pen. And speaking of switches, there are about ten switches on every wall in the house. And at least half of them don't do anything. On this panel, in our bedroom, two switches on the top control the fans (along with the knobs), two turn on lights, and one kills the outlet. The rest don't seem to do anything. (The remote control on the right controls the A/C - *so exciting!*)

A/C wall unit above our window

A/C: It's getting hot. I've talked about that more than enough, and I'm certainly NOT complaining. Until recently, we did not have A/C and had to combat the heat with ceiling fans and moving around as little as possible during the day. But now we have A/C. And it's amazing.  Each bedroom has its own unit, remotely controlled. It's sort of not a window unit (because it's permanent) and not central air (because there are not vents/forced air) – but I'm happy to report it works pretty well at keeping our room cool, and for that we are so thankful!

Night Light: The mosquitos, and bugs in general, are really not that bad. We have noticed them the most at night: Enter the "Good Knight" light. There's some kind of chemical in this bottle, that must react with the light (or heat) generated when this thing is plugged in that is supposed to repel the little buggers. It seems to do its job. The first few days we were here, I noticed I was getting bit like crazy – but only on the back of my upper right arm. I realized I was always sleeping on my left side, with my arm tucked outside the blanket – my only exposed skin was my upper right arm. Fans also help keep the bugs off while we sleep.

Our bathroom - the toilet is just to the right of where I'm standing

Water heater especially for our shower

Hot Shower: The showers here are not generally enclosed structures, but merely a shower head on the wall and a drain in the corner. Generally, this gets water everywhere – it can't be avoided. Each bathroom also has its own "on-demand" water heater. You have to remember to turn it on a few minutes before if you want a hot shower. It seems like a pretty good system for conserving energy. We had a similar, mini version of this "on-demand" water heater in our loft apartment in Hungary.

Toilets:  As I mentioned before, many people in India do not use toilet paper.  As an alternative, many homes install a sprayer next to the toilets in their homes.  (It looks like what many cloth-diapering moms have installed in their homes in the US.)  We’re not quite sure of the specifics, or how to avoid making a big mess with the sprayer…your guess is as good as mine. :)

There you go – so of the ordinary, everyday details of life in India.