Finally a warm shower, and a small electric shock to go with it

So, I don't know if I had previously mentioned the fact that here in Cape Coast, almost no one has hot water. Not out of any tap. If the weather was excessively warm right now, I wouldn't mind taking cold showers at all, in fact I rarely mind cold showers anyway. However, it has been pretty cold here in Cape Coast especially in the morning and evening. I have been taking freezing showers every morning for the past three weeks or so.

I have been getting a little tired of shaving my legs (please refer to previous post) in cold water with goosebumps, and my legs have been complaining as well. So I went in search of a cheap, easy way to heat water for my shower. Obviously having a water tank installed would be far too expensive. Heating buckets on the stove would be cheap, but highly inconvenient. I was told there was some kind of heating rod you could buy, so I looked into getting one of those.

I had to ask around the market on Sunday but eventually found a small coiled metal rod that you plug into the wall. I was skeptical when I bought it as the boy assured me it would work and it only cost a few US dollars. I didn't have much to lose, so I took a chance and bought it.

In the morning I filled a bucket about halfway with water, plugged the heating coil into the wall, and carefully set it in the water (afraid I was going to electrocute myself, this just doesn't seem like the safest concept). Soon enough, the water started sizzling, much to my delight. I could see that the rod was red hot, but it had not been in the bucket for that long, so I decided to try sticking my finger in to see if the water was warm enough yet. To my disdain, I received a small jolt of electricity which seemed to settle in my stomach. I don't even like touching the ends of batteries to my tongue. The water was warm though! I had a wonderful luke warm bucket shower and I am thankful for the heat for once. So here is to cheap, (slightly dangerous?) ways of improving my quality of life. :)