Heating Elephant

I hate to be cold. People know this about me because I believe that it is important to make a big deal out of things that bother you. That way people aren’t surprised when they offer you a banana and you tell them you can’t eat it because bananas are disgusting in every way, shape, or form---they are ugly, they smell bad, they squish like rotting hard-boiled eggs (something else I hate, rotting or otherwise, because they look and taste like eyeballs and they smell like a fart).  So naturally, because I hate to be cold, I make a big deal out of it, wear all the clothes that I own at the same time, and call the head of the guest house where I am going to stay to make sure I get in a room with hot water. Otherwise, I would not be taking a shower for a week.  Once I arrived at the guest house and was not put in a room with hot water, I texted and called him until the guard showed up at my door holding a water immersion heating device which you can see in the following photo:

 

Yes, this device can melt plastic and yet it is inserted into a plastic bucket of water and plugged into an electrical outlet in the wall. I wonder if a hair-dryer would have the same capabilities if you took off that tag telling you not to turn it on in the bathtub---it’s pretty much the same concept.  The important thing is that it makes the water warm, although I find that my body is conditioned to expect a mandi (bucket bath to the non-Indo folks) to be cold. So I still brace myself before I throw a bucket of water over my head.

Here are some tips for those of you who may someday be in the position to use a ‘water immersion heating device’:

1.     You must hang it over the bucket by something—a stick, a pole. I used one of the metal curtain rods from the extra bed in my room where the mosquito nets hang.  If you don’t hang it, the metal will rest on the plastic bucket and burn a hole through it. Then, as you may know, the water will all leak out and you cannot heat a shower stream with this device.

2.     Don’t expect the device to heat the whole bucket all the way through. It only heats the water immediately surrounding it. So make sure to let that water get as hot as possible, and then mix the rest of the water with the gayung (smaller dipper bucket for the poor people who have never had the great privilege of learning the Indonesian language).

3.     I don’t know this from experience, but I assume that one shouldn’t stick one’s hand into the bucket of water while the device is still on.  This may be somewhat akin to trying to blow-dry your hair while you are still in the bathtub.  Fortunately, the majority of electrical sockets in India can be turned on or off by a switch. I think this is genius because I can leave cords plugged in wherever I want and just switch off the power without having to unplug everything. It especially helps because sometimes the sockets aren’t screwed in so well and they come in and out if you pull on the plugs too vigorously.  But just to be safe, I don’t put my hand in a bucket of water if the water heating device is in the water, even if the outlet is turned off. Because you never know if the switch really works to completely turn off the electricity…

You may have noticed that I shortened “water immersion heating device” to “device.” I know that’s vague and leads one to imagine a more sophisticated piece of technology, but I tried to find another name for the device, even asking the head of the guest house (who showed up minutes after the guard bringing me another device in case I needed two—I guess I made a big enough deal about the issue that it convinced them to make an extra effort for me.).  Still, no one seemed to know. I had a brief moment of excitement when I looked on the box and saw the word “heating elephant” in bold capital letters. It gave me pause as I tried to think of reasons why the device should be named after a pachyderm.  I thought, “It’s long and coiled and that looks like an elephant’s trunk?” But that would mean that a slinky or a bedspring resembles an elephant. As far as I know, elephants do not have any sort of water-heating power aside from an ability to mix large amount of their own fluids with whatever body of water they happen to be sitting in. Then I realized that the name written on the box is indeed “water heating immersion device.” My guess: “heating elephant” = “heating element.” But it is possible that ‘elephant’ is some kind of technical name for some kind of electric thingy that I would have no idea about anyway…