#1 Description- Showers

By way of inauguration, this blog is going to be my Peruvian experience communication. Here, I will have journal, descriptions, observations, and tips. They will be numbered accordingly, and I expect you all to appreciate just how awesome it is.
My background and why I find myself in Peru.
I served as a missionary for the LDS Church here for 2 years. There I met a girl named Malu, who after I returned home came to the state where I live to work for a few months and we began dating. About a year after that, I flew back to Peru to propose. About 6 months later, we got married in the US. Now I am back for a semester doing an internship at the Employment Center operated by the LDS Church. I will be here from Christmas 2009 to the end of April 2010. Enjoy the information.

About showers. Typically, there isn't hot water as the States are accustomed to seeing it. There is no central water heater that puts out hundreds of gallons of hot water (I am sure there are somewhere, but not in the everyday house). What there is are 'ducha elictrica' (electric shower, the name alone should give one pause). This consists of a plastic head that is connected to the pipe (usually 90 degree angle straight out from wall) that has a little metal coil inside of it.
This coil receives live current from a random wire that is either coming from the wall for this purpose or, in the case of some of my more ghetto residences during the mission, a wire ran from the light overhead. Dangerous? Yes. Functional? Mostly. Ever get shocked? Heck yes. Especially if you are tall enough that your head brushes up against it when it is running. There is a ground wire coming out that sometimes goes nowhere, but sometimes is attached to a nail in the wall.
Finally, because shower handles are usually metal, and because when the water touches you, you complete the current, you have to be cautious in how you touch the handle to turn off the shower. In the mission we got around this by wrapping the handles in electrical tape. Seems to me that the safest way to shower is cold, but that's no fun either. In some areas (I'm looking at you Puno), the water only runs in the morning so you either have to do all of your washing and other water needs then or buy a big plastic tank to put on your roof to store water.
Well, there you have it, showers in a nutshell. Shower head brands that I prefer come from Brazil and have Italian sounding names like Lorenzetti. You can buy a replacement wire that is inside the shower head for about $2 and some change (7 soles) and replace it yourself by unscrewing the top and bottom half and using needle nose pliers to yank the coil off of the nodes. Good luck and stay clean.