Bucket Life

Bucket and pots of all kinds can be found in India and the uses are vast and various. Steel is the most common type of plate or bowl material. It is also the material of all tumblers most importantly tea cups. In the home tea will be served in steel, in public tea stalls, tea will be served in glasses. If you are a guest then tea may even be served in china in a petit cup and saucer. There are some porcelain factories specializing in the craft just like the people who specialize in clay pot making. In the morning I wake up sweaty with red cheeks from my hot summer sleeping. I go to the bathroom and begin to fill a bucket. Mathews apartment has four buckets and depending on what my activity I may use three or one. There is an opaque salmon colored bucket with matching pouring cup for toilet use. There is a large turquoise bucket with blue pouring cup for showering and then there is a small opaque speckled gray bucket and a translucent white bucket with blue streaks both of which I will use when washing my clothes. It is always good exercise to do the washing but if I have access to a washing machine my clothes will definitely be cleaner. I will fill the turquoise bucket for my bath. Since I have been here I have reduced my water consumption from one and a half turquoise buckets to only one. Sometimes I will take an extra cupful of water to collect all my curly hairs and spot clean the bathroom. The knob filling the salmon colored bucket needs to be pushed down in the last second before it closes, it took me a couple tries to get used to that. If I am doing my wash I will normally do two loads. First one soapy bucket with the clothes I will imitate a washing machine and use this plastic scrubbing brush for spot cleaning or general abrasion. The dhobis who make a living washing clothing smack the tuni (clothes) on abrasive cement surfaces. The smack them in bundles making a musical rhythm of the sloshing and sudsy water splashing all around. If you have any buttons or embroidery with beading better to use the gently cycle and do it yourself. After the first washing there are two buckets waiting for me each half filled with water. Taking a shirt by the shoulders or a pant by the waist I quickly and repeatedly dip the garment in and out of the water. In the position of the women working in the paddy fields bent at the waist with knees straight I will rinse in the first bucket, ring the garment out and then rinse in the second bucket. Depending on if there is any soap in the second bucket I know whether my technique is working or not. This technique I learned here, though I have not adjusted to the musical sloshing yet, but initially upon my arrival I was just washing in the first bucket and then running water from the tap over every clothing. It took me forever and was totally wasteful. The most poor people know the best most creative ways to use all materials efficiently and effectively. I have yet to see a dryer and part of the fun is stepping into crispy fresh smelling jeans that have been soaking up the suns rays and are rapidly becoming threadbare and full of holes.