The Privy

Every home has a private space.  But because it's interesting, I'm sharing ours.  We have 2 bathrooms with showers upstairs and a half bath on the main level.

You might be wondering, 'How different can a bathroom be?'  Not at all, and quite a bit, all at the same time.

This is a picture of the kids' bathroom.  You'll notice there is no bathtub.  Overall, bathtubs are uncommon here.  For a long time I wondered how kids bathe, and finally got the nerve (and vocabulary) to ask a Brazilian.  They shower with their parents.  Until they are about five.   Wow, I don't think I could give up that tiny bit of privacy I get in a day.

The only tub we have is a baby tub, which we bathe H in, and usually M chooses to squeeze into when it's her shower time. I have also caught D mid-shower soaking about 20% of his body with his legs dangling awkwardly out of the tub. I don't blame him. I miss baths too. 

I am not sure if I have mentioned before the little TP issue. We don't flush it. When I say "we" I mean more than just our party of 5. In Brazil (at least the parts I am familiar with) you cannot flush your TP. Septic/waste management cannot handle TP. We have nifty covered trash cans in each bathroom for TP disposal. It may seem so very strange to you. For us, the first week was hard, several mistakes, a bit of being grossed out, emptying the trash daily, and now it is just what we do. In fact, just tonight we had a little talk with the kiddos about "when we visit the US and have to use the potty" because I don't want dirty TP ending up anywhere but the toilet when we're there!

You can see in the picture above from the master bathroom the white tube hanging down (coiled up) from the shower head.  This is a small hose with a  nozzle.  All showers have them and it's purpose is for cleaning the shower.  We use them to clean the children.


The whole subject of the shower would not be complete without mention of the shower head.  Most houses are plumbed only with cold water.  In some cases, houses have solar hot water, and in our case we have a small unit that heats water on demand using propane, but it takes ages to reach the upstairs, so typically, showers get hot water at the source.  Cold water comes into the (electric) shower head, and it instantly heats it (something like a toaster coil) viola! hot shower.  If you are anything like my husband, your immediate thought is, I don't want a toaster anywhere near my shower.  Yeah, I know some people who have received an electric shock in this vulnerable situation.  Part of me has to wonder is a hot shower is worth it.  The American in me has to wonder if it's really THAT hard to plumb in hot water.  Regardless, this is our reality right now, and if people got shocked too often, it wouldn't be widely used.  But it is, so I have to assume it's relatively safe.  Regardless, electric power to heat the water must be coming from somewhere.  Does the idea of loose electrical wires randomly plugged into an outlet over your wet head creep you out?