Showering with a "Ducha"!

Showering with a "Ducha"

^{This morning I was reading Hebrews 11:13-16. It says:}

 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Having just returned from a trip to Honduras, I could relate to being a “foreigner and a stranger.” I also will admit that by the end of the week, I was ready to return to my home country. But as I pondered the passage it didn’t take long for me to realize that as a believer I really wasn’t home yet. Later, as I wound the old kitchen clock that had been in my mother’s home and rearranged things on the mantel where my Dad’s sepia colored photo sits, I felt a pang of nostalgia: Not only did I miss my parents, but with all the craziness in the world, I really longed for my heavenly home.

I’ve been to Honduras five times, so you think I’d be used to it. But I could not get used to the shower contraption they called a “Ducha.” In all the years I’ve traveled there, I was not able to master the ducha. This year, I listened intently to the details of adjusting the water to make it hot. Missionary-friend and man-in-the-know about all things Honduran, Frank gave such clear instructions, I knew I could get it to work! In past years I always had to ask for help.

A ducha is a “great idea” if you don’t want to deal with a traditional water heater. With it water is heated just as it comes out of the shower head. However, electricity is provided in such a way that you can see the wiring as you stand below it, inspiring fear and trepidation. “Don’t touch it!!” Frank admonished. “It is nick-named ‘the widow-maker’”!

The best was to describe a ducha is to imagine a boxy bell, but I also think it is shaped a lot like the toilet paper roll covers that ladies used to knit to cover the spare roll of paper; the slight curve at the bottom of the knit t.p cover is designed, perhaps, to look like a hat. In addition, the ducha sports an upward plastic extension going from the top side of it, like a feather stuck in a hat!

Here are the instructions I received to operate the ducha successfully to get hot water: turn the singular shower handle all the way to the left. This starts the heater, giving you the means to get hot water, eventually. Next, carefully turn the handle back to the right, (all the time praying for hot water as you do so). Only, be careful not to turn it too far to the right, because if you do, the heater will turn off and your hopes of hot water are gone. Remember: less water equals hot water; too far to the right equals cold water. If at first you fail, “try, try again.” Patience is definitely needed.

On this particular evening, when I understood the clear instructions, I looked forward to mastering the art of hot water by ducha. Everyone else on the trip had gone to the local gas station to get snacks. However, with an unforeseen failure in the electricity, mastery would have to wait. The electricity dimmed off and on, and then went out completely. No hot water, but even worse, no light! I stood in the dark, thinking. I was thinking a lot of things, none of them pleasant. Why did I come on this trip?? Where was Bruce when I needed him?? Who was going to preach a sermon to me in the morning and tell me you have to “go with the flow” down here?? All I wanted was a flow of hot water. Was that too much to ask!?

In the dark I found where I had left my clothes, got dressed, and found my phone. I went outside and carefully crossed the cobblestoned paths of the courtyard, hoping to find someone in the reception office. Asking for help was the last thing I wanted to do, especially since I was in my pajamas and slippers.

Instead of finding the humor in it, I fumed. No one was in the reception office, and not knowing the password for Finca el Capitan, I couldn’t access the Wi-Fi with my phone. I was trying in vain to reach someone else on the trip. I knew my fellow travelers would laugh to see me out in my pink pjs, but going back in a dark room was not an option. Finally a young man appeared and in my “best” spanish I said, “Tengo problemas con la luz en mi cuarto, y no tengo agua caliente.” He disappeared without saying a word!

Three minutes later he came back and showed me his phone which said, “I will help you with your light and water.” I was a foreigner ready to return to my own country! It did not help for Bruce to return and remind me “we are in a third world country.” “Yes, I know. I’ve been here before,” I whined. “Give  me thirty seconds to be grouchy.” I took longer than that.

After a relatively good nights’ sleep, considering the windows had to be left open, I woke up and looked on the “bright side”. Yes, I heard barking dogs, crowing roosters,  periodic firecrackers, which are used year round, and backfiring from many motorcycles! But I thought, I will only be here for a week, and then I’ll go home.

It also helped me to remember that Jesus left his heavenly home and became a man so that He could suffer and die in my place. What little discomfort I endured could never compare. I reminded myself I was here to love on friends from the little community in Cenicera, and that my creaky bed in Gracias was far better than any they had up there on the mountain.

The electricity was back on that morning, and I am pleased to say I mastered the ducha. I got my hot shower that day, and every day for the rest of the week. Great instructions Frank! Yes, I’m happy to be “home”, but I still await being happier in my heavenly home.