31 January 2012

How Peace Corps Is Like Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

I'm not saying I know what it's like to live through a zombie apocalypse, but there is one thing I can easily imagine identifying with: a scarcity of hot showers.  At the risk of overgeneralizing and speaking for everyone, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the way Peace Corps Volunteers feel about hot, on-demand showery goodness is probably how you would feel about them if you were to survive a zombie apocalypse for any longer than a month (or maybe less).

In general, we Peace Corps Volunteers in Azərbaycan are luckier than most in terms of access to basic utilities like electricity, water, and gas, which powers the stoves (I've seen no electric ranges) and has been the most reliable of the three in my experience thus far.  (I think there would be a real Tea Party revolution here if people had no way to boil water to make çay.)  However, hot showers (in which category I include crouching under a waist high faucet, as long as there's hot water pouring from it) can still be difficult to come by, and the reaction of Morgan and Duane in this scene from
 AMC's excellent adaptation of The Walking Dead pretty well sums up any given Peace Corps Volunteer's feelings about hot, like-manna-from-heaven showers.


No comments:

Post a Comment