THERE are some among us who will deny their bathing rituals. As kids, we took a "head bath" on a Saturday. That meant washing one's hair as well. The rest of the week involved an odd assortment of personal hygiene.
There was the "body bath" that kept the hair dry. One of its options was a splash with soap and a full scrub. A variation was a face cloth wipe from eyebrows to toes. A third option was the face cloth applied to eyes, ears, underarms and naughty bits.
The most minimalist was the daily washing of feet. This was usually accomplished at the outside drain with the undersoles rubbed clean on the abrasive concrete. Why the feet and nothing else is an unsolved mystery.
Back in the day in my beloved Unit 3 district in Chatsworth, we had running water. Needless to say we used it rather too sparingly. One explanation was that weekdays were far too busy to devote to leisurely baths. We took turns on Saturday to go full house.
The sixties to the early eighties in Chatsworth was millennia before hot water geysers were affordable. The bath water was sometimes boiled in a large pot on the stove. That was best avoided as it chowed power. It also damaged the ring plates on the prized Defy. The second option was the electric immersion iron that was hung on the side of a metal bucket.
The great ritual was heating water in metal drums on a wood fire in the backyard. That chore fell to either the eldest or the youngest lad. One after the other family members took their turns in the toilet that doubled as a bathing facility.
Accompanying the drum was the battered chombu. That varied from a proper metal or plastic jug to a jam tin. You wet the body with a jugful starting with the head and then soaped all over. There was no fancy soap. Carbolic soap, a green or red option that was handy for the laundry or long bars of the trusty Lifebuoy sufficed. The soap was left to dry in sun. The harder it got, the longer it lasted.
The scrubbing ritual was harsh. Usually accomplished by coconut husk or coir and latterly the bags in which oranges or cabbages come. Long before it became fashionable among the Musgrave madams, we also had loofahs harvested from the back garden.
Bangladesh bath time stories can fill a book. Others have written about their rituals. Garret Fagan wrote Bathing in Public in the Roman World published by the University of Michigan Press. He talks about Roman bath time as a mass social event where they delighted in public nudity.
More recently, Bruce Smith and Yoshiko Yamamoto put together the beautifully illustrated book, The Japanese Bath. They write that in the west a bath is a place to cleanse the body whereas in Japan one goes there to cleanse the soul.
Being on the shy side my district folks are not likely to go for the public bathing bit. On the other hand, there are those shy to bath in private too.
* This year, Chatsworth, one of the most unique and vibrant townships in the country, celebrates 60 years since it was founded in the 1960s. In commemoration of this anniversary, the POST is publishing a series of articles from Kiru Naidoo’s book, Made in Chatsworth.
* Kiru Naidoo is the author of the memoir, Made in Chatsworth published by Micromega. A second edition of the books will be released in November to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of Chatsworth township. It will be available from www.madeindurban.co.za.