Another shock was the bathing. Every morning I was reminded there was water for my bath in the water heater. This was before I even ate breakfast. Didn’t they know I bathed the previous day and that was good for at least one week? Not in this household. I was made to bath daily and brush my teeth twice a day. Why, I did not understand, but I did it to please them.
My resistance to bathing every day was justifiable especially in this place, if only they could listen to me. This is one place you did not get dirty at all. We stayed inside the house most of the time and there was no chance for us or our clothes getting dirty. My feet never touched the floors because I wore slippers all the time and even if I didn’t, the floors were so clean and shiny you could eat off of them. Yet we bathed every day, changed clothes every day and changed our beddings every weekend, while they were still very clean. Why, I did not understand.
There was a huge jar of Vaseline in the bathroom for anybody to use. I started getting used to applying Vaseline every day after I bathed. This never happened back in OlKalou. We only applied Vaseline on Sundays when we bathed to go to church or any other time when we bathed if we were going somewhere.
But I can tell you there is magic in water, soap and Vaseline. After a few weeks of bathing daily and applying Vaseline, my real skin color was revealed. People often said I was light skinned like my mother, but I never got to see it, until now. My clustered hair stubs grew out into hair I could actually comb into a cute small afro.
Now, I looked in the huge mirrors in the bathroom and on the dressing table and I could barely recognize myself. I think I looked cute and smelt good too with the Glade Airfreshner all over my clothes.
