Life is hard but cold showers are harder (NO)

Spoiler: There’s not hot water at the dorms

Life seems to conspire in favour of this assignment. At first, I wanted to simply reduce my shower time, since I prefer fresh ones (warm if I’m feeling tired, but never hot!) and I’m also quite used to letting dry my hair with the wind and the coldness of the mornings.

However, lately, in the residency, the heater has been decaying to a point of not so soon returning and few fortunate (including myself at some point) had the luck to take a last nice shower. Well, a fast one for me.

One day, we all woke up to a totally broken heater. No hot shower for anyone. I thought of myself as having tough skin. It wouldn’t be the first time that I have had a cold shower in cold weather. In my family house, we don’t even have heaters, that’s the norm. So I simply entered the shower with no warning to my body.

The coldness of the water hitting my skin reminded me of my childhood when my parents forced me to take my first shower with no buckets of warm water heated at the stove because they were already tired of having to do so. I also recalled the words of my aunts: “If you shower with cold water in this cold weather, you are going to feel warmer after coming out of the bathroom”. Then, locking myself on those thoughts my skin started to adapt to the burning cold feeling. It got easier in less than a minute and I was out some other minutes after.

The same issue has been repeated each morning since Monday, though, right now the heat system has reached 24.6 celsius degrees again this morning, and it was as hard as the first time but with the same easiness at last.

The problem has prevailed throughout the week, it can be said that indirectly over 90 students have (against their will and awareness) contributed to this activity.

In the end, I might say that even if I was used to the lack of warm showers, once you get the opportunity to have one, it’s quite difficult to let go. It’s not a standard in many countries, regardless of the weather by location (the high mountains for the tropical countries), and perhaps some might say you are spoiled if you shower with hot water, but it’s reasonable for it to be a basic in the search of a comfortable life against extreme weathers.

Sharing some students’ comments on the current circumstances