Just Like Chris Brown…..

The same as Chris Brown and Jordin Sparks had “No Air”, if I was a singer I could surely sing about no water with as much soul.  Because for the first six days of my last trip NO WATER was the name of the game and it’s insane how this one thing that we take for granted can alter your life if you don’t have it.

Before heading down to Jamaica last trip I announced to you all on our Facebook page that I’d scored a wicked deal on renting a private home in St Elizabeth for my two week stay.  So I trusted the friend who put it together for me and headed down to the home, sight unseen.  Upon arriving at the house I was pleasantly surprised at the location, which I kind of knew beforehand, I just had no idea what the actual house would be like.  All I knew is that it backed onto a lake in Hilltop, St Elizabeth and that I was only going to pay $300.00 to stay there for two weeks.  Since when do I get that good of a deal on private accommodation for two weeks unless I’m reviewing it?

Upon first look the house was charming and exactly what I had imagined.  When we (my Canadian friend Brenda, and I) entered it was pretty good inside as well.  It had a fully furnished living room, dining room, kitchen with more dishes than I’d ever use on vacation, TV, bedroom with two double beds, and a fan.  It also had an abundance of those silk flowers that adorn every Jamaican home lol.  We would be more than comfortable here – we’re pretty simple travelers.  The absolute best feature of the whole house was a BEAUTIFUL back yard view looking out onto the lake behind us.  Trust me, opening our back door was first and foremost every single morning here.

Like we literally got to wake up to this outside our bedroom window each morning.  And this is also the side where the sun rises, except we were never up early enough to catch it.

So here’s where the fun starts.  We had arrived at the house late in the day and basically dropped our bags and went out to Pelican Bar for sunset.  While out at sea I did swim in the salt water so my first order of business when I got back to the house would have been a shower, however when I used the toilet I noticed it wouldn’t flush.  So I decided to test the sink and sure enough no water came out when I turned the faucet.  I’ve experienced brief water shut-offs in Jamaica plenty of times before this, so I sent a text to my local friend and told him the house had no water.  He informed us that the entire community didn’t have water at the moment.  He lives 4 houses down the street so he knew.  But he assured us the water would be back on by morning and this was normal so we sucked it up and used bottled water to brush our teeth before bed.

The next morning we woke and had to drive our kidnap victim, Harald to the bus station really early – you can read about the kidnapping right here.  So since we had to be out of the house early we just threw on some clothes and went out the door.  We’d take care of our hygiene later….but I did notice the toilet still wouldn’t flush.  Not a good sign and for some strange reason a small feeling of relief came to me that we’d only paid the house owner $100.00 up front….just in case.

At the bus stop there’s a really nice bar  and supermarket so I made sure to use the facilities there before going home.  We also used the supermarket to buy a few bigger bottles of water so we could boil it and make our morning coffee, brush our teeth and stuff like that.  Lucky for us girls we travel with those packaged pre-moistened facial cleansing cloths so we were able to give ourselves what we call a “ho-bath” LOL.  Armpits and privates.  The rest could wait until the water came back on.  Only it never did that day either.

I was a little agitated because my hair is really curly and after a few days of not conditioning it basically gets all knotted and eventually dreadlocks itself.  Not a pretty sight.  So this is where things got romantic between me and Brenda after a couple days.  We noticed the bathroom was stocked FULL of water buckets and full plastic containers of water….this is also normal in some areas of Jamaica.  I had to wash my hair so I enlisted her to help me do it.  I proceeded to bend over the tub while she poured the fresh, cool water over my head.  Oh Lord this felt so good!  I shampooed, conditioned, rinsed and then we repeated for her hair.

Listen, we’re big girls and very simple travelers.  This barely phased us and ultimately created a lot of laughs for the rest of our trip.  Everywhere we went we bitched to whoever would listen about our water problem and the fact that we haven’t showered in 2, 3, 4, days. We even got offers from the general public to come use their showers if we needed to!

Now I can handle the shower issue but the one thing I could NOT handle was having to go on actual excursions to public places just to use the bathroom!  No sah….a toilet isn’t on my list of conveniences that I want to do without unless it’s dark out and I’m at a bush party and need to pee.  But not as a daily part of living.

Over the six days we stayed in the house some amazing little breaks did come our way.  The first one was this awesome guest house we stayed at for one night in Junction.  I would have paid the $25.00 just for the damn shower at this point but we got a whole room and a sleepover for that price!  In that one night we spent there we took the longest, hottest showers with the most shaving, shampooing and exfoliating EVER accomplished in the history of mankind.

Also, our no-shower issue facilitated our eventual meeting with the owner of the most gorgeous place I’ve ever stayed, at Barefoot Villa on the beach in Black River.  My friend Brenda was randomly talking to an American guy at Pelican Bar and in a roundabout way, five days later that led us to the villa owner where we eventually spent the rest of our trip….FREE!  With showers and a pool!

[dropcap letter=”O”]n a more positive note about the waterless house, we did experience many cherished moments while there.  It’s deep in the countryside which is where I absolutely love to be and I missed it after we left.  It was in a place that I consider to be my “hood” on the south coast.  We had a family of goats living across the street from us that gave us hours of entertainment each morning as you can see in this video.  And not just goats but we practically had an entire zoo in our front yard each day.  Cows, goats, donkeys.  You name it, we had it and we missed it when we left.  That is the lifestyle I love in Jamaica.

We also had no shortage of motorbikes stop at our gate to pick us up anytime we wanted a ride.  Once we left I missed the sound of bikes zipping up and down the street at all hours of the night.  We ended up at so many random places due to these bikes dropping by….most notably some stranger’s dead yard.  That was an interesting experience rolling up to a stranger’s funeral on a motorbike LOL.

And that, my friends, is how to go without water for six days in Jamaica.  Pack your moist towelettes and beg people for showers!!!  You never know what bonuses will come to you!