Spreading skinship
I HAVE come up with a great idea to help us beat the water shortage spawned by El Nino which has already created serious problems in other countries in the region, including neighbouring Venezuela.
My suggestion is based on spreading skinship which can also help build greater national unity and end a lot of troubles in communities. It may even help cut the domestic violence wave and stop men beating up women.
Men usually opt for cold showers to cool themselves down under certain circumstances; but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged his countrymen to stop taking long showers and singing while bathing. He feels cutting down on the time spent bathing will help ease the water shortage caused by the prolonged drought in his country.
I have tried singing in the shower. But our dogs set up such a howling which other dogs in the neighbourhood feel compelled to join whenever I launch into a song in the bathroom that I have given up imagining that I am a worthwhile contestant for American Idol.
So I zip into the shower and zip out these days, doing my bit to conserve on water. And I may be wrong, but it seems that the dogs are smiling and wagging their tails much more delightedly when I leave home these days.
Ah well — anything to stop their infernal howling.
I don’t yet have a kitchen or flower garden to water with tap water and we don’t use a power hose for hours to wash paved sections of the yard.
It has always amazed me that people who live near drainage and irrigation canals and trenches use precious piped water to irrigate their gardens when water from the trenches will do just fine.
Just think about the benefits of fetching water from the trenches for the gardens, instead of standing with a hose to do the job. Many of those hose fanatics spend money joining gyms to work out, or go for walks or runs in the National Park or on the seawalls, when they could do much better by lugging buckets of water to do the job instead of hosing around and wasting a precious commodity.
And there are so many other little things people can do to stop wasting water. Even where water use is metered, they leave taps running while washing wares or clothes.
For some people, cars and other vehicles have to be washed with water from the tap to look clean, when a good splash of `trench water’ will suffice.
Guyanese need to cultivate a greater sense of conservation with water resources around the world coming under mounting pressure from burgeoning populations. Guyana being the `Land of many waters’ is no excuse for us to be complacent.
And it might be a good idea for the authorities to take a look at spreading this skinship thing.
The Japanese may have gotten it right with the Sento — a type of communal bath house where customers pay for entrance.
According to Wikipedia, these bath houses have been quite utilitarian, with one large room separating the sexes by a tall barrier, and on both sides, usually a minimum of lined up faucets and a single large bath for the already washed bathers to sit in among others.
Some Japanese find social importance in going to public baths, out of the theory that physical proximity/intimacy brings emotional intimacy, which is termed skinship in Japanese.
Isn’t this a great idea? People bathing together, getting to know each other better thus leading to greater social cohesion? And conserving water at the same time?
Think about the benefits of our political leaders, for example, sharing a communal bath and indulging in skinship.
If El Nino can help cultivate skinship among our political leaders, their constituents may soon catch the Sento fever and the wave of domestic violence may be cooled down.
I have some endless skinship possibilities in mind but those can come at another time.
For now – I throw it open to the political leaders to ponder on and act.
They can start with a symbolic holding of hands and wading into the Atlantic Ocean for a dip and a skinship baptism.
Hail up the Sento!