A shower story

This is my Peruvian shower, also known as a widow-maker. This complicated mess of tubes and electric wiring is technically called a water heater, but "water-sort-of-warmer" would be a more accurate name. On a good day, the shower gets to where it could tentatively be called lukewarm, but with the water pressure of a dripping sink. The first paradox of the widow-maker is that the harder the water pressure, the colder the water - if there's too much water rushing through the tube, the heater can't effectively warm it. The second paradox of my particular widow-maker is that if you put the water pressure on too low, the whole circuit will short out and the heater will stop working entirely. Even if you take care to set the appropriate flow level, your best-laid plans can be demolished by someone else in the house turning on another water source - the kitchen sink, the upstairs sink, etc. This typically happens at least once per shower.

My shower process commonly goes something like this: 1) put on flip-flops, gather shower stuff and clothes, and walk downstairs; 2) check shower for spiders - generally there are at least two, but if they seem settled in their corners I let them be; 3) turn water knob to reach a not-too-much-not-too-little water pressure point; 4) flip on widow-maker; 5) further adjust water pressure, getting a slight electric shock to my fingers each time I touch the water knob; 6) enter shower, shudder at how not-hot it is, but eventually get semi-used to it; 7) shower as fast as possible (a.k.a. almost never wash hair) and pray that the circuit doesn't short out; 8) inevitably, the circuit shorts anyway, and with a quick flicker of the lights my water goes ice-cold; 9) try in vain to get the heater to function again without getting too many electrical shocks to my body; 10) exit shower as fast as possible.

Sadly, I've come to consider the above scenario a "good" shower day. Recently, our widow-maker has been on the fritz, simply deciding to malfunction without any logical reason - there have been a lot of ice-cold (mountain water) showers, during which I literally get brain freeze. I'm secretly hoping the machine just full-on breaks soon, since then we can start talking about getting a new one! But, to put this whole scene in perspective, at least I have: a) running water, b) a shower that is c) in a semi-clean bathroom with a locking door, and d) even the possibility of sort-of heating my water - many PCVs have none of the above, so I'm still doing quite well for myself here in Cajabamba.