Saturday, April 16, 2011

Bowl Bath

After a long day out with the kids we finally went home, ate dinner and began the bed time ritual. I put my daughter in the shower as usual however, shortly after my daughter called me into the bathroom. She told me that water wasn't getting any hotter and it was cold. I felt the water I realized that it was true, the water was ice cold. Being that my daughter and nephew had been in the park all day they desperately needed a bath. I reverted back to my "roots". I went into the kitchen warmed up some water on the stove diluted it with some of the cold water from the faucet and washed my daughter and nephew out of a kitchen mixing bowl. My daughter thought it was pretty funny as did my nephew.
I realized that the kids have never had to do anything like this before. Were as other children from all corners of the world were used to bowl baths and sadly enough some had never even had a bath. This got me thinking about the difference in societies for children. In the Dominican Republic the water and the electricity comes and goes as it pleases. Often times there is a shut off time for the water. That means no coming in at whatever time of night and taking a nice shower, let alone a warm one. In the Dominican Republic you can often times buckets of water in the shower. This is done so there is water through the night as well as bathing water. So bucket/bowl baths aren't that strange for some of my very own cousins, in fact its normal. Then here is my daughter and nephew in New York City finding the bowl bath both comical and strange.
Its funny how culture stays with you and how even though my parents moved to the States when I was one year old I sill have some of the cultural experiences or ways 20 years later and that these can be passed down to my daughter and nephew intentionally and unintentionally.
Posted by at 4:23 PM
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