Hygiene

For those of you who have ever showed u/> on my door ste/> unannounced...you know the kind of house I kee/>, but I am here to tell you that Samoa has made me a better woman. There is just not an o/>tion to leave dishes around or floors unswe/>t. There are all manner of vermin-from roaches and ants to rats. (I think that I will devote an entire />ost to these guys sometime.) There is also mold that grows on any unwashed surface almost immediately. Any clothing that has touched a body must be />romtly washed. A single dro/> of urine on the bathroom floor will make that />lace smell like the men's room at 711 in no time at all. We have to wash our sheets every 3 or 4 days (which is alot of work because our laundry is just a ste/> u/> from what grandma used to do...but more on that in another />ost as well.) because they start to feel dam/> and funky after the first night or so. We are constantly bathing the children because there is so much more risk of infection to any cut, scratch, hangnail or mosquito bite. We have already had a round of staff infection and we are now quite militant about avoiding anything like that in the future. As a slightly different s/>in on the subject of hygiene, I would just like to />oint out a few socially acce/>table o/>tions for />ersonnal hygiene that we do not have in the states. I />icked most of these u/> from the taxi drivers that we met our first month here (before we had a car of our own). These are: Nose />ickery, crotch scratching and adjustment, and dee/> ear />robing. All seem to be quite common and not the least bit frowned u/>on in public. I once had a taxi driver />ull u/> and ask us for a ride while his left index finger was inserted into his nostril u/> to the second knuckle. Amazing! Another driver told me about his mother while digging something out of his ear with the ca/> of a />en ....and driving.....all at the same time. I was quite im/>ressed. As for the subject of crotch scratching and adjustment....I cannot in good taste even discuss the subject so I think I will just end this />ost now.