Take the long way

I’d like to introduce you to some of my friends here in Ghana. (Mom, don’t freak out as you scroll down. I promise I have real friends too.)

First we have hand broom and dust pan. Better quality bristles than I found on brooms in Mexico, but that’s hardly relevant. I bought these items last week at the mall and have used them twice to sweep out all the dust that blows into my room. In fact, the second instance of this sweeping happened just moments ago and was the inspiration for pulling out the laptop and jotting down my thoughts. Do you know how long it takes to sweep an entire room with a hand broom? Here’s a picture of my room so you can get an idea. Not small by any means. (More on my living situation in another post.) 

I’m sure that by any historical measurement or non-“I-grew-up-in the-USA” measurement the time that I just spent cleaning seems microscopic. For me, it provided me just enough time to get into it and actually feel connected with the floor. Now you might be asking yourself, “How much dust did he inhale that he’s now becoming one with the floor?” Something in the act of being down on my hands and knees (Did I mention it’s a hand broom instead of paying $1 more for the full size? Travel thrift is in my genes.) crawling a few inches forward after each brush really felt rewarding. Now my floor is clean enough to do yoga, which is just the plan. We’ll see how that goes.

Next we have something I’m sure you’ve all seen at some point or another so it hardly needs an introduction. If you’ve been following me on Facebook, you’ve seen my posts about how handy this little guy can be for opening wine bottles. I’m actually only 2 for 4 on that count, but I’ll share the disaster photos another time. When you look at this doesn’t it just scream, “I’m a problem solver!” In addition to helping open the odd bottle of wine, it was also instrumental in helping put together the fan you see in the above photo from my room. 

Next we have a set of items that probably look familiar, but how about that razor? About two years ago I decided I was going to ditch disposable razors and switch to this little guy. It’s called a safety razor and my inspiration for it came from a section of a book titled “Shave Like Your Grandpa.” All said and done, I think I shave just as fast with this as I have with anything else and the upkeep is so much simpler. Just replace the razorblade and you’re good to go. There’s another cool thing about it, you get to deal with super sharp equipment and feel like Mr. Manly Man every time you shave.

I’ve saved the best for last. What are these? Obviously we’ve got two buckets and maybe you can identify the electric kettle, but what on earth do they have in common? Ever heard of a bucket bath? Maybe you have and I’m the only one who’s new to this. I’ll explain anyway. Every morning when I wake up, I use the little bucket to first fill the electric kettle and then turn it on. While the water is heating, I use the smaller bucket to fill the larger bucket with water from the sink. Once the water has reached a boil, you add it to the larger bucket and hope that the mixture is neither too hot nor too cold (Imagine Goldiocks picture), but there are easy fixes for that.

So why am I sharing all of this? Partially because right now, typing up my thoughts is more fun than figuring out how to do yoga on a cold tile floor, but also because these things make me feel more alive. I mean it. It’s not that any one of them is an essential cornerstone to enlightenment, but they force me to turn off the auto-pilot of my life. How easy is it to turn on the shower and hop in? And when was the last time any of us had to crawl about the floor just to keep it clean? I suppose this could provoke the natural response that we take many things for granted, but that’s not what I’m going for. I would say that we (or at the very least, I) let the conveniences of my life keep me from enjoying the inconveniences that come up. There’s got to be a moral in here somewhere, so here it is. Do something the hard way. Forget that there’s probably an iPhone app for whatever you need to do and go out there and get your hands dirty. It could be more fun than you think.

Next up: Why am I here? (Not on this planet, but at my desk typing this blog.)