Ode to Bucket Baths

I wanted to take a quick moment on this warm and damp evening to give my homage to the beauty of a bucket bath.

For those who aren’t familiar with a bucket bath, let me explain. This is the most widely used form of bathing throughout the world, population wise at least. The basic method is scooping water out of bucket, with a cup, and pouring it on your body.

In Africa this most often includes a scrubby, a long scrubbing cloth, to suds up and scrub all over the body. I think that you can actually get cleaner this way than with a regular quick shower!

It might sound primitive, but it is actually quite fabulous in my view.

Really! It’s not that bad! I only wish I at the picture of my sis and I squeezed into one of our first bucket baths as babies!

Reasons why I love a good bucket bath:

1) It feels fabulous! Cold or warm, they are both wonderful. The feel of a stream of water is much different than showerhead – try it, you’ll like it!
2) It reminds me of good times. I cherished my bucket bath as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana. They have the good sense of showering twice a day, which wonderfully refreshing from the African heat. My favorite kind of bucket bath is also outside under the stars. This beats an indoor bath any time (don’t worry I had a bath house with no roof! not just standing out in nude!)
3) Saves Water. You can’t help but feel satisfied when you finish with a bath and have used a bucket or less of water. All in all you can have a very good bath with about 10-15 cups of water!

True, a hot shower with excellent water pressure has its definite merits, but I’ll trade a drip of a shower for a bucket any day!

Looking forward to mine tonight!

Happy bathing!

Miel