And, no matter how much I scrub with foul tasting chemicals, it always looks this dirty! (I don't actually eat the chemicals, they smell so bad that you can taste it for ages). That was the hard part to start off with...not feeling clean after a shower coz it was so dirty.
It takes a while to realise, but as we walked down to the rubbish bin (pictures following) we realised how lucky we are. The student dorms, unlike our apartment, are rooms that house 8-10 people. They don't have access to a kitchen and they share one bathroom per floor. I think we're pretty lucky to have what we do. I've also seen girls washing their hair outside using hoses and buckets and men in their undies having a bath with a bucket in the crowded and filthy streets. I don't know what they do in winter! I'm glad I have my own bathroom as I get stared at in the streets enough let alone showering there too!!!
This is the short walk from our apartment block to the bin or dump. There are no garbage bin days here!! These are the students dorms right next to it. I cannot explain how much this thing smells. It is everyone's rubbish from the whole school block (there are at least 2 of these student blocks and about 3 blocks of the ones that we live in, and also the school). Also remember that we can't flush toilet paper...it all ends up here too. The cats scavenge around here ripping up the bags and I don't understand how, but heaps of the rubbish ends up all along the road, instead of in the shed. I've also seen a couple of people looking for stuff in here too. There are a lot of people (some don't look homeless or anything) that look through the bins around town. Some get food out, some get out recyclable bottles etc and put them in huge dirty bags.
I have noticed our dump gets emptied fairly regularly, I'd say almost every 2nd day. It still smells, but not as bad as it could I suppose! It's really bad when it rains as the water washes heaps of stuff out...yuck.
I didn't want to get too close, as it was I was standing on eggshells and brown things!! I still can't believe that someone lives in the room that is right next to it. That would be their only window too!
This situation is normal for students who go to university. They also have at least 30 hours of school to attend a week. This does not include homework and assignments.
Some other differences:
We have to brush our teeth with bottled water!
We live and breathe in air-con.
The bread is sweet! (Paul met an aussie couple who are teaching at his uni and they have imported a bread maker...they made us a loaf and let us borrow their vegemite!)
The meat section in the shopping centres in a full-on butchery. You want chops? I'll hack it off the beast for you right now...it disturbs me. Not much of the meat is packaged like at home either. It is all sitting in the not-so-refridgerated shelves. There's everything you could imagine too...heads, hearts, intestines, feet, and while your looking at all this you're hearing the butchers hacking through bones all around you. For me, this is a nightmare. Paul says I have to get over it. I'm becoming a vegetarian!!
On a better note, the fruit and veges are really fresh and really yummy! We have to wash them all in purified water first, but we always have a lot of exotic fruit on hand! I bought a pomegranite the other day, and dragon fruit, and nashi pears and grapes and apples (with writing on them!!) YUM!
1 comment:
i think you should embrace it. like you could purge your sins and cleanse yourself at the same time. imagine that! and at least you know that if pauly is peeing in the shower... he is probably using the correct facilities.
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