Survivor's Journal: Entry 3
Since December 20th, I have not taken a shower with running water. Instead, I have opted for bucket showers! I'm in the Philippines right now and we have some notoriously bad infrastructure.
At where my mom grew up, we got open sewers, no running hot water. But it's completely different at the place my dad's side of the family owns. They have hot running water, air conditioning in almost every room, and semi-closed sewers. They have openings in the sidewalks where the water drains into.
P.S. Don't walk on top of them. The smell is horrid.
P.S. Don't walk on top of them. The smell is horrid.
But there's one constant here: the air pollution is so awful it turned my boogers black.
We have this bucket in the bathroom. Each time I showered, I took a smaller bucket called a "tabo" and used it to dump water on me to shower. I did this for every day, once a morning, for my trip to the Philippines besides the first day when I was on my flight. I could see how much water I was using each time I showered, which was a couple inches of water. I need to measure how much water that actually is, but will update soon with that!
If this project ended today, I still feel like I would be able to continue. This is mainly because I save so much time in the shower (~12 minutes total in the bathroom) if I kept up my old habit. But if I kept doing the Navy Showers, then I'm able to shave about 9 minutes off my shower, then I have 9 more minutes I can use eating breakfast or leaving earlier. I have been able to take Navy/bucket showers on a regular basis without relapsing. If it's this easy, I feel like I should have adopted something else to do that will challenge me to save the environment. Oh well.
One thing I learned from the "How America Uses Its Land" article is that a fifth of the country is dedicated to agricultural land, but only 19 percent of that portion is dedicated to just the food we eat (Bloomberg, 2018). The majority of agricultural land is dedicated to livestock feed. According to the USGS, 208 trillion gallons of water are used for irrigation every day (USGS, 2016). By reducing the amount of land we dedicate to agriculture, let's say, animal feed, much of that water use can be reduced! If we reduce 20% of the land we use for agriculture, we can potentially reduce 41.6 trillion gallons of water used per day, which can help mitigate droughts or other water crises such as Day 0.
Now, let's talk about habits since taking Navy showers is a habit. Developing habits is hard, especially when I have to fit it into a busy schedule. A habit I tried to develop was practicing my guitar scales for at least 30 minutes a day after school. It took me 30 days to remind myself consistently in order to do it without even thinking about having to do the action. Much shorter than the projected 66 days the James Clear article stated. But it was something I had fun doing, so I had an easier time forming this habit. This article inspires me to continue the Navy showers because even though it might take a while to form a habit, habits are always long-term and need a long-term commitment.
One thing I learned from the "How America Uses Its Land" article is that a fifth of the country is dedicated to agricultural land, but only 19 percent of that portion is dedicated to just the food we eat (Bloomberg, 2018). The majority of agricultural land is dedicated to livestock feed. According to the USGS, 208 trillion gallons of water are used for irrigation every day (USGS, 2016). By reducing the amount of land we dedicate to agriculture, let's say, animal feed, much of that water use can be reduced! If we reduce 20% of the land we use for agriculture, we can potentially reduce 41.6 trillion gallons of water used per day, which can help mitigate droughts or other water crises such as Day 0.
Now, let's talk about habits since taking Navy showers is a habit. Developing habits is hard, especially when I have to fit it into a busy schedule. A habit I tried to develop was practicing my guitar scales for at least 30 minutes a day after school. It took me 30 days to remind myself consistently in order to do it without even thinking about having to do the action. Much shorter than the projected 66 days the James Clear article stated. But it was something I had fun doing, so I had an easier time forming this habit. This article inspires me to continue the Navy showers because even though it might take a while to form a habit, habits are always long-term and need a long-term commitment.
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