No matter how much you try: you're never really clean in Zambia. It doesn't matter if you've taken the most thorough bucket bath of your life and scrubbed every nook and cranny. The minute you rinse off and step out of of your bathing shelter into the dust or mud your feet are instantly dirty again. Along the same lines your clothes are never really clean either. They may look and smell mostly presentable but the minute you stick that dirty foot through your legging or pant leg they are once again dirty. It's just a fact of life here.
I scrub my feet with my leftover dirty bathwater. We do dishes in what quickly becomes a dirty bowl of wash water followed by an only slightly less gross bucket of rinse water. The laundry water is a bit counter intuitive as you scrub your clothes with nothing less than soapy watered down mud by the end of the bucket. Of course much like the dishes the first couple pieces of clothing get a nice rinsing but after that you are really just diluting the soap and dirt combo that has been rubbed into the deep pores of the fabric by harsh hand washing. Sure your clothes might be stain free and mostly smell like nothing but they dry stiff from the lingering soapy dirt clinging to the fibers.
Even after I shower I dry myself off with a chitenge that in the same day might've been used on the ground, around my waist, on my head or quite possibly all three.
The good news is that no one in the villages has running water to keep clothes supremely clean and even those that are fortunate enough to bathe in a concrete shelter have to step on the same dusty ground at some point. So despite the fact that I'm more hygienic here than I ever was in the states I think it's a safe bet to say I'm never exactly clean here in Zambia.
I scrub my feet with my leftover dirty bathwater. We do dishes in what quickly becomes a dirty bowl of wash water followed by an only slightly less gross bucket of rinse water. The laundry water is a bit counter intuitive as you scrub your clothes with nothing less than soapy watered down mud by the end of the bucket. Of course much like the dishes the first couple pieces of clothing get a nice rinsing but after that you are really just diluting the soap and dirt combo that has been rubbed into the deep pores of the fabric by harsh hand washing. Sure your clothes might be stain free and mostly smell like nothing but they dry stiff from the lingering soapy dirt clinging to the fibers.
Even after I shower I dry myself off with a chitenge that in the same day might've been used on the ground, around my waist, on my head or quite possibly all three.
The good news is that no one in the villages has running water to keep clothes supremely clean and even those that are fortunate enough to bathe in a concrete shelter have to step on the same dusty ground at some point. So despite the fact that I'm more hygienic here than I ever was in the states I think it's a safe bet to say I'm never exactly clean here in Zambia.
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