How water and fire DO mix...

I had planned to open my first blog post after returning to Bolivia, with a comment on how ridiculously cold it’s been here. But then my near-death experience in the shower last night kind of pre-empted that story...

Later, after my harrowing experience, I changed my Facebook status to reflect my latest adventure, and there seemed to be some scepticism (Mike Bodnarchuk) as to how one could have fire and smoke mixed in with a normal showering experience.

My friend...I live in South America. We have here, what is affectionately called the “Widow Maker”. It’s an electric showerhead that heats the water as it passes through, so you can have a hot shower. I like hot showers enough that I face my fears of electrocution and deal with it. Truth be told, I’ve had very few major issues with those showerheads...at least once I learned not to reach upwards when washing my armpits.

Last nights adventure, however, was not with the showerhead. It was with the breaker box that sits in the wall next to the showerhead. This breaker box is supposed to be your friend. It’s supposed to shut off if it seems you are being electrocuted.

Last night it was not my friend.

I was happily enjoying my shower when all of a sudden from behind me I hear a hissing and spitting noise...a noise one doesn’t normally hear when one is in the shower. I turned around to see black smoke and flames (electrical flames) shooting four or five inches straight out into the shower. I should mention that the breaker box is not that far from where you stand when you’re in the shower. So it...um...made me tense...

Photographic proof of my "adventure"....

As I said on Facebook, I don’t think I’ve ever exited a shower quite so quickly. And for those of you who asked if I at least had a towel on? When one is running for ones life, one doesn’t think about silly things like towels. To make that situation even more unfortunate, the guys considerately washed my bedroom and the living room curtains while I was home in Canada. That was nice of them...the unfortunate part was that they mixed up the curtains and put mine downstairs and the living room ones up in my room. Well...that wasn’t really the unfortunate part...we’re coming to that. The thing is, living room window is quite a bit smaller than my bedroom window, and as a result, the living room curtains fail miserably when it comes to complete window coverage in my bedroom. There are, shall we say, some significant gaps. That wasn’t even all that unfortunate...until I came barrelling out of the bathroom sans clothing (ie. buck naked).

So once again the gringo entertains the neighbours...

I took Jimmy (our resident electrician) and showed him what had happened. His comment was that the wiring in the house is, as he put it, “delicate”. I have a few other words in mind, and delicate doesn’t even make my top ten.

So, yea...I guess I’m home.

PS Come back tomorrow and I’ll write some more about being back and handing out the soccer gear (very fun) and going to the mechanic to figure out why my brand new back tires have worn down so much in the past three months that the left one actually blew on Tuesday and left us high and dry for a bit. Not as much fun. Oh yea, and if I have the chance, I’ll write about the near riot at the soccer game we went to Tuesday night that all of South America is talking about...