Letting It Go to My Head

Anytime I step into a room, or get on the bus I feel like a movie star since every head turns and all eyes are focused on me. Since white western foreigners are still some what rare in this part of the world, I tend to draw a lot of attention.

I mentioned in my last post a group of women my classmate and I met when we were Hati lopping. When I entered the room these women all stared at me. One of them touched my hair, amazed with how "yellow" it was. Two of them sat across from me commenting to each other. "look at her nose, it's so big" and "look at her skin she is so white and pale". I don't think they realized at the time that I could understand every word.

When I first started understanding local languages, it was a real struggle to over hear people talk like this about me. It took me a while to realise they meant it as a compliment. In the west we don't see being repeatedly called a big nosed pale white person as a compliment, instead it is a sign to get a nose job and go to the tanning parlour. I was really self conscious about my appearance and how often and openly the people around me were discussing my flaws. But the truth is everyone here has slightly darker skin, and they believe the whiter you are the more beautiful you are. So every cream in the store has a whiting ingredient in it. They also think people with tall noses are beautiful and lucky (if you have looked closely at my nose in profile you would know just how lucky I am).

These same woman who asked my friend if she had had plastic surgery, sat across from me for over an hour saying I was so beautiful, that they wanted a nose like mine. They asked if I rubbed milk on my skin each night to keep it this white. By the end of our visit my classmate way very afraid I would have gotten a big head from hearing for an hour straight how gorgeous I was. Thankfully in Uyghur when you tell someone they have a big head it is also a compliment meaning they are very diligent and organized. Who knew I was an organized beauty.

Have you had Plastic Surgery?

I mentioned in my Christmas post that a lot of what Uyghurs know, or think they know about western culture comes from what they see in movies. This point was further verified to my classmate and I recently when we went visiting over the holiday. Uyghurs do watch a lot of Hollywood movies, (likely because they are sold in the underground DVD market real cheap) but their favourite of all is Korean dramas. All of my teachers are addicted to Korean dramas, which have all been translated into Uyghur and are daily shown on television. Uyghur culture and Korean culture are very similar in how they respect elders and the lack of public displays of affection on TV. When we visit student's dorm rooms they have large pictures hanging above their beds of their favourite Korean actors, and our teachers are always talking about what happened on the latest episode.

My classmate is Korean American and so people are always asking her questions about Korea and the latest drama. When we were visiting over the holiday we went to a friend’s house. She had four or five other women over visiting, all of whom live in the country side. One of these women knew a lot about her favourite movie star and therefore she figured she knew a lot about Korea in general. She looked my friend up and down and said, “you are pretty, when did you have your plastic surgery done?” (it took us a while to understand since plastic surgery was not covered in our textbook). My classmate was rightfully a little shocked and taken back. The woman went on to explain that she had read some where the large percentage of Korean actors that have plastic surgery, and that even a lot of none actors are starting to also have surgery. Her own reasoning therefore said “they must be an ugly people group if everyone needs plastic surgery”. My classmate, however, was not ugly so she figured she must have had work done to get that way.

It just goes to prove that you can’t believe everything that you see on TV, and have to be very careful about drawing assumptions from a limited amount of knowledge. This is a good rule for me. In the last few weeks all of my local friends have been busy preparing for exams and studying so my new favourite pass time is watching Uyghur movies. It is great since now I can actually understand some dialogue and see some of the culture played out in front of me.

Exams

Our teacher called us last night at about 8:30pm and asked if we would be up to having our final exam this morning. Thankfully it was just our reading class exam and all of the answers were right there on the test page for us. I feel a 99% coming on baby.


Happy New Year

Happy 2007. It is hard to believe that this is the third New Years I have celebrated out here. This year the general celebration of the New Year was very much over shadowed by Korban festival, but my friends and I still had a good time. I hope you did too. I also hope that this New Year will be a great one of growth for you, I know that is my hope for myself I want to grow not only in knowledge of local language and culture, but also in personal maturity.

The Colour of Forgiveness

It has been more than 40 days since I wrote about all my rules for eating food in a Uyghur home over a holiday. You can tell how many days since we have already come to the next major Uyghur Holiday. Just 40 days after Muslims celebrate the end of the fast they have the day of blood. This is the holiday that remembers the sacrifice that Abraham almost made of his son Ishmael. It is said that at the last moment God saw Abraham's faithfulness and sent a lamb down from heaven. Each year Muslims around the world sacrifice a lamb in memory of this event. But the lamb is meant to be more than just a memory. It is a means to receiving forgiveness.

Reading the koran over the the Lamb

This year I got up early in the morning on the 31st and went down to one of the biggest mosques in town. If there is one call to prayer a Uyhgur would not dare to miss all year, this is the one. By 8 in the morning the street had to be closed down since there were so many men gathered around with their prayer rugs. We stood on the overpass near by and were amazed at the colourful patchwork their prayer rugs made all laid next to each other. Off to every side there were herders selling sheep to be sacrificed. So much for being with our blemish or spot, each sheep was marked by their owners so they would know which ones were theirs to sell.



Later in the day I walked around the neighbourhood and witnessed the number of sheep hanging from the trees as their blood spilled to the ground. Soon the black snow was covered with blood, and sheep parts. Amazingly enough three days later the black snow was covered over by a fresh white clean layer of snow- now if that doesn’t ring with the colour of forgiveness, nothing does. As I walked about that afternoon I stopped to talk to the women who were outside. I asked many questions about the holiday and about sacrifices in general. I learnt a lot about there thinking and was even able to share some of my own. It was interesting having both the biggest western holiday and the biggest Muslim holiday in the same week. It has been a week to reflect on birth and death of giving and sacrifice.

We think we gain weight in the west over Christmas, I have no hope. This week will be filled with going to visit local friends in their homes. At each home the freshly slain lamb meat will have been boiled and be sitting on the table to eat. It is impossible to leave a home without eating a lot of meat (or in most cases a lot of lamb fat). Oh well, I guess I will just have to revisit my own eating rules I wrote about in October.

Lack of Communication

Due to a recent earthquake in the area, internet access is very limited, and will continue to be so for the next week or more. For instance right now it is almost 2 in the morning; I thought it was the only time of day I might be able to connect. So for a little while the KSA Daily should more rightly be called the KSA whenever I can get connected. Sorry.


Class is Over; When I say it is Over

I remember the days of school schedules and time tables. When you knew the first day of September when would be your last day in May. Everything was written out for you and kept.

School here works very differently. Over Christmas everyone was asking when my last day of class was. There were many times I had to plead ignorance on the matter. We had cancelled class for both Christmas and Boxing day. When we reported back to class on Wednesday our oral teacher informed us that this was going to be out last day of class, and that our exam would be on the 8th of January after she got back from her in-laws. The next day on the 28th (yes I did go to class that day), both of our teachers likewise informed us that we were having our last class (they were getting to busy to teach us). They also said that since we had just finished a lesson and it was pointless to start a new one that we should just sit around and talk (If I get the teaching job next semester this might have been my last official day of formal education, talk about anti-climactic). One of our teachers said she would call us when she had time and give us our exam, but not to worry about it too much since she was planning on photo coping another teacher's exam from a different class, so some of the material might not totally match what we have studied. She told us we could work on it together at home and she would collect it 2 months after winter vacation was over.


A Treeless Christmas Pizza

Merry belated Christmas. The day of Christmas seems very much the same, but the build up as I said before is very different. This year I didn't set the tree up in my room, instead we took it over to my classmates house. Part of the problem is that all the Uyghurs know about Christmas is what they have seen on TV and movies, that information is then reinterpreted through their own understanding. Some think we worship the Christmas tree (I guess one to many movies have scenes with westerners standing around the tree holding hands and singing "Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree"). So to avoid misunderstanding I did not decorate.

I spent Christmas day with some of the other foreigners who live in town. We exchanged gifts and had a pot luck. The only thing is that luck was not totally on our side, none of the people in my group had the good fortunate of being excellent cooks. Dinner, therefore, consisted of whatever people could make. We had pasta, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pizza with a fruit and whip cream dessert. It was good, just different.

I think we all tend to miss home most at this time of year, so many of the foreigners spend a lot of time together celebrating and eating food from home, in the midst of the festivities I found myself asking where the mutton was. I was eating so many hamburgers, and wraps that I really missed the whole big bone of meat just being set in front of me.

Eating for Ears

Winter is now upon us and locals believe that on the first day of winter or the shortest day of the year it is important to prepare for the cold that is coming. One way they get ready for the winter is by eating dumplings. They think the dumplings resemble the shape of your ear. The line of reasoning goes that if you eat enough dumplings on the first day of winter you can protect your ears from falling off in the cold. You will be pleased to know that I ate enough to keep my ears in place for another year.

You should ask my family about eating dumplings. I took them out to my favorite dumpling place when they were here last year. I ordered 50 to start figuring we could order more if we needed them. I know I ate at least 20- 25 of them, and the rest of the family only finished about 12 all together. I guess it is an acquired taste. My only warning is wear a hat this winter, because if you didn't fill up the other day..... Who knows where your ears will be come spring.

I Have a Dream

The middle of the winter is cold and dark. One of the things that helps get me through is the knowledge that over winter vacation I have to go for further schooling in Thailand. I dream of when I will trade in the the cold, dark, coal dust polluted days for the bright sunshine of summer.



from this...

to this

Only one more month and counting.

Sounding Local

I am so proud of myself; tonight my friend and I were standing at the side of the road trying to get a taxi right at change time. Every night between 5:30 and 6:00p.m., as everyone is getting off work, the taxi drivers also switch from the day shift to the night shift. It is next to impossible to catch a cab, either they already have someone or they are heading back to headquarters and are no longer taking passengers. Despite this I was able to hail one tonight.

We were standing on the side of a busy four lane street in the middle of rush hour. We had been waiting for a while in the cold when I finally spotted an empty taxi on the other side of the street, three lanes away. In my best possible local voice I yelled “Whay” (the h is very throaty and the ay is kind of shrill). The drive must of heard because he turned his head, nodded at me and made a u turn as soon he could. Once we got in the car and I heard how loud he was playing the music, I was even more impressed with my shouting ability.

This Santa Thing is Getting Out of Hand

Yes Christmas is right around the corner. I can imagine that at home you are almost constantly surrounded by sights, sounds, and smells that point to the coming of the holiday season. At home all the stores would be playing Christmas music, brightly coloured lights would be flashing from almost every window around town, and fresh baked good would be constantly pulled out of the oven. Christmas really is only 10 days away.

Here, however it is not a national holiday. Students still have school, infact some of my friends even have their final exam on Christmas day. Everyone still has to go to work on the 25th, it is just another day on the calendar. But you wouldn’t know it from looking around town. Santa’s face is everywhere. Every store seems to have bought a cut out cardboard copy of it and placed it in the window. Here anything that is western is considered cool. That is way so many people are learning English, why so many people want to watch American movies and wear American style clothing. The more of western culture the more they try to take it in an imitate it.

It is sad actually because they do not know what is it they are pretending to celebrate. I asked one of my local friends what they knew about Christmas and they said that it was Santa’s birthday. Talk about having your facts mixed up a little. Some of these stores that put up decorations now will keep them up for months. Back in September I was in a little bakery across the street from my school and they had a “Happy Christmas” sign hanging up. I don’t care whether they were early or late, Christmas decorations should not be up in September. Down at the Grand bazaar there is even a cut out of Santa riding a donkey and playing a rewap(local stringed instrument). Or the hotel that tried to combine cute ideas by decorating with a "Finding Nemo Christmas" They had a big Santa wearing a scuba diving mask. It is just wrong.


It is one thing to celebrate or at least recognize the historical part or Christmas, since it is universal. But they have just witnessed the commercial elements of our holiday and are trying to adopt them without any background. This is how I feel about the whole thing.

Red Hands

I am getting the urge to dye something again. I remember when my roommates in college would get this same urge, normally it meant it was time for a new hair colour or just a few high lights around the face. However, when Uyghur girls get the urge to dye something it is normally their hands or their fingernails. I must admit I have dyed mine three times and actually kind of enjoy it.

When dying your hands there is only one colour RED. The girls buy henna powder on the street for just pennies a box and then mix it with hot water. The paste can be put on the palms of your hands, soles of your feet, nails and hair. You have likely seen the beautiful designs that they use henna to make in India, unfortunately here the effect isn't quite as decorative. I have asked a number of my friends what the henna symbolizeses. I have read that in strict Islam it is related to fertility. Most of my Uyghur friends have never heard that, they say that there is no meaning, that it is just like makeup to make you beautiful.

Don't you think it is beautiful?

Don't worry it does come off the skin in five to seven days, but will stay on your nails until they grow out. The deepness of the red depends on how long you leave it on. Most times I make up the mast, apply to my nails, wrap each nail in a little bag and than sleep like that for the night. When I get up in the morning my nails are a dark blood red. The first few days are a little scary because I often forget that my skin is dyed and when I look down it looks like I am bleeding. I have to keep reminding myself how beautiful I look to my local friends.





I will follow this local makeup tip, to try to fit in, but I think It will be a long time before I go out and buy the plant they use to get the unibrow look (which is also considered very beautiful by people who live in villages).

Black Hands

One of the most satisfying things about living out here in the winter is washing your hands. As I have mentioned before ever single surface gets covered with a layer of coal dust, your hands are not exempt. As I use hand railings in staircases, or touch things for sale on the street my hands also get covered in it. There is nothing more satisfying than coming home and washing them (okay I guess if I actually had warm water to wash in that would be a little more satisfying) just watching the dust and dirt and grim drip off and get washed away. The end result is fresh, white, clean hands.

The coal dust does not only turn my hands black it turns everything black. I often keep a tea set set out on the table so that I can serve guests when they come over, however now I have to dust it every day.

Worst of all is the white snow. I am listening to Christmas music as I type and all of the songs are about white Christmas’ white winter wonderlands, but not here. This is what the coal dust does to the snow just a few days after it has fallen.


Pretty isn’t it.


And that is one of the offending coal piles that I use to look out at, when I lived at my old school.

Bu Yao

Even here in central Asia there are a number of north American foreigners we all often get together to hang out and enjoy speaking English at a normal pace. All of these friends have really become a family far away.

One thing we often do is bring our old things. Anything that at home you would put out on the front lawn and sale at a garage sale, we take to our get-togethers and give away to each other. Parents bring the clothes that their children have out grown, others bring DVDs that they have watched or books that have been sent from home. Recently I found one of the greatest finds out here. Someone was giving away a ergonomic keyboard.


I had one of these things in college and it helped my sore hands type longer and faster, but it was just too big to put into my suitcase and bring over when I moved. All emails for the last two years has been a little slow and painful. But now thankfully I have a new one. You can tell by looking at it that its previous owner had been learning Russian, since the keys also have the Russian alphabet, but who cares it works.

When ever you go to someone's house for the night they will announce that there is a pile of bu yao stuff in the corner and to take what you want. Literally translated the words mean don't need, previous owners are getting rid of what they don't need. But the fun thing is that when said slightly differently in sounds like "oh yah", or something we might say at home when we found something really good. If you live here long enough you will see the same things you bu yoaed two months ago being re-given away by the next person. One persons junk really is someone else's treasure.

Doggie Bags

When we get left-overs at home we always talk about taking them home in a doggie bag… which means there is a nice styrofoam container. But here doggie bag, really means a bag. When I first arrived I was very amused that when I got food to go, it was poured into these thin, see-through, plastic bags. Over time the novelty of it wore off and actually became quite common place. I have even caught myself grabbing a plastic bag to put the rest on my homemade food in the fridge instead of one of the nice Tupperware containers I brought from home.



All of this is well and good until something like tonight happens. I was walking home from dinner with my friends. I had not been able to finish my food so I brought more than half a bowl of soup home in a little baggie(yes even soup goes in the bag). I was walking and swinging the bag at my side. When the handles broke, the bag dropped and the soup spilled on my leg. My pants were all wet and by the time I walked the rest of the way home they had frozen solid.

Flood!

The building I live in is only seven years old… but by the amount of problems it has you would swear it is a lot older. For instance I woke of this morning to the sound of water dripping form somewhere up above (thankfully in the hallway and not right in my room). I found out that someone’s faucet on the fourth floor had burst and water was everywhere up there. I spent a good two hours helping my friend dry out her room.

This brought back memories of last year. Two weeks after I moved into this building the guy across the hall from me had a leeky squaty potty, sewer water was coming out into the hallway. He was home in the states so we had to clean up for him. It was so smelling and gross and happened repeatedly over three days.

The second flood of last year was in my own room. Our heaters in the rooms are pipes with boiling hot water constantly being pumped though them. Every few days you have to release the extra air in the pipes. Only when I tried to do that the little knob fell off in my hand and within five minutes my whole room was under three inches of water. Even though the room is small it took seven people three hours to get it all dried out(including the uyghur man from down the hall who didn’t want to get his pants dirty so worked in his stripped long underwear).

Exactly six months to the day of my first flood, my room was once again covered in water. This time the room next door’s toilet tank would not shut off. Because of the way the floor is slanted in our building (as I said it seems old), hardly any water went into her room, but I was once again completely flooded. This time the owner of the building was waking me up at three in the morning. After that I gave up buying carpet for my room, it is just to hard to pull out the dripping drenched mess. From then on it has been tiled floors for me.

Floods I guess are a common part of life here. I am now an expert water remover.

Slaughtering Sheep and Conjugating Elephants

As any one who has ever studied a new language can tell you, you WILL make a lot of mistakes. The Uyghur culture is largely built on shame and losing face, so they joke: ‘when learning a new language you have to put your face in your pocket’. I just reread that in English and realised that it really doesn’t translate well. Hopefully you understand the meaning; a person can not be scared trying.

For the last several months whenever I am speaking I tend to forget the Uyghur word for “so” or “therefore”, instead I use the national language word. Not on purpose, it was just kind of what came out (it has gotten so bad that I have my classmate kick my under the table whenever she hears me use the wrong one). I recently learned, however, that in Uyghur it sounds very close to the word slaughter, like how they slaughter sheep on the holiday.

Today in class my teacher pointed out another mistake I had been making for months. Every time someone asks me how my Uyghur studies are going, or what I think of the language, I always comment on the verbs. There are over 1200 different ways to conjugate a Uyghur verb. I normally tell my friends that verbs are hard and I am never sure what to do with the back end of them. The only problem is I have not been using the word for verb, instead I have been telling them that the back end of elephants are very messy and I don’t know what to do with them.

Since my face is already in my pocket, here are some other funny things I have unknowingly said over the past two years in either Uyghur or the national language.
-“I rode a carrot” = “I rode a camel”
-“did you fire your seeds?” = “did you shave?”
-“I’ll need to ask the banana” = “I need to talk to the principal”
-“Is someone at the donkey?” = “Is someone at the door?

Happy Thanksgiving,

Okay I know I am a little late on sharing these wishes, especially considering that I am Canadian. But just last night my classmates, who are all American, and I hosted thanksgiving dinner for our teachers. We went all out with green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce (which my classmate proved could be made from dried cranberries that had spent two months in the mail) , sweet potato casserole, bread , and chicken ( turkeys are really hard to find out here, and ham is forbidden). It tasted so good; at least to those of us from North America, I think the teachers thought it was a little weird. We tried to teach them the English expression “Going for seconds” but I don’t think to many of them actually went.



Since we had planned the whole thing rather last minute considering that I just got back from down south, I think some the teachers felt obligated to come, one lady couldn’t find a babysitter, so brought her five year old son along. Our rooms are very small(considering the guest list of seven and a full buffet table), with not a lot of interesting things to occupy an active kid, he ended up playing with my classmates computer, which I don’t think she was the most thankful for. We did the traditional go around the circle and tell one thing that you are thankful for this past year. Most of our teachers were not that original and all said that they were thankful to be our teacher, and get to experience a western holiday. One of our teachers announce during this time that it was her birthday. They all had to go pretty early and left us with a lot of uneaten food.

So 15 minutes after they left, which was just enough time to rinse off some of the plates and silverwear, we started our second thanksgiving party of the night. This time we went all around our dorm building and knocked on all the other western students’ doors asking them to come and join us. This group ate till they were full, even though the food was now all cold. Despite the second party it will still be leftovers for us for the next week.

Cleaning the snow

I know I have written on this topic in the past in my emails and letters, and I am sure I will mentioned it again in the future, but every year when the snow first arrives I am always amazed at what a great equalizer it is.

The day after the snow stops falling the pounding, scraping and shouting begins. Every business is responsible for clearing the snow from in front of their shop, not only the side walk but also the road. You will see ladies from fancy dress shops out in their high heeled shoes with a pick axe in their hands, working next to the butcher who still has blood on his apron and a shovel in his hand. Every business sends all but one of its workers outside. The whole street becomes alive with the sites and sounds of snow removal. It is like a street party with a purpose. The buses stop running and everyone joins in. Even on our campus each class (except of the foreign students, thankfully) is assigned a portion of side walk or road that they have to clean off).

It is funny because in Uyghur the verb for shovelling is actually cleaning the snow. And it sometimes seems like that is what they are doing. Today when I was out for a walk I saw a guy trying to shovel off the snow using a big over sized broom. I really can’t say how successful he was with his tool, but he was cleaning the snow.



The first day after it snows is also special for other reasons, it is one of the few days in the winter that we are blessed with clear skies and white snow. The falling snow does a lot to clean the pollution out of the air. The snow is white for all of a few days before it is covered with a light layer of coal dust that make it look black. I better enjoy it while I can.

If it never snows than what do you call the white stuff falling from the sky?

As some of you might already know I am looking into the possibility of moving next semester and teaching English. My friends I left on Wednesday night to make a trip down to the school to check it out and talk with officials. Thankfully we where able to take the train instead of the dreaded sleeper bus.

On Wednesday we where overwhelmed with our first snow fall of the year. Instead of just a few flurries… it dropped buckets. I was excited to be headed south to the edge of the dessert and escaping the winter furry that had been unleashed. When the guy meet us at the train station on Thursday morning ( it is a 13hour train trip) we where pleased to see that the sky was clear, the trees still had some of their fall leaves hanging on, and there was no slipper white stuff covering the ground. We asked our host from the school how often in snows in this part of the country, and he assured us it didn’t. Buy the time we left the meeting at about 6pm it had started raining, and after a little supper, the rain drops where starting to look a little fluffier and a little whiter.

The next morning when we woke up the ground was covered with the slushy type of slipper snow. Our host blamed us for bringing it with us from the capital city, but in reality winter is just here. We took the bus back this morning and found out that it has now been snowing for four days straight. Everything is covered in the white winter wonder land.

Wet Blanket

About this time of year many different indicators of the cold weather start to appear. Today, for instance was the hanging of the blankets. For some reason, that is still unknown to me, almost every building hangs these heavy green blankets in their door ways. These green blankets often get wet from the snow and rain, and in the dead of winter they freeze solid.

Since I am not the strongest person in the world I don’t always push them hard enough out of my way, and then the wet blanket swings back and hits me in the face, trust me once they freeze over, it kind of hurts. The other weird thing is that you can’t see through them, so you never know if someone else is coming or going in or out of the door. This often leads to collisions. I know they hang the blankets to keep the cold out, but if they would just close the existing doors (that only swing one way, and have windows so that you can see on coming traffic) a lot of pain and inconvenience could be avoided.




Okay so this is not the most interesting post in the world. But after just one day of having the blankets back in the doorways I have already crashed into two people who were exiting the building I was trying to enter.

Roads Where We Are Going We Don't Need Any Roads

Today I was very nearly hit by a car, which considering where I live is not that unusual of a thing. Every day when I cross the street it is like playing frogger. Cars don't stop you just have to time your crossing right and go one lane at a time. This often means that you have to wait in the middle with cars trying to hug the line on both sides of you. I remember when I first arrived I would always wait for locals to cross the street and then just try to fall in step with them. I have since finally honed my own skill. Ask my family, I think the whole process of crossing the street really stressed them out when they were here last year.

Today's near accident, however, did not take place in the middle of the street, or even on the side of the street, in fact I was no where close to the street. I was walking on the sidewalk when I heard a car horn beep behind me (which is in and of itself is not that unusual). So I jumped out of the way, only to discover I was inches from the front of another car heading the other direction on the SIDEWALK. I don't think people realise that the word walk is in there for a purpose. Cars are not suppose to be driving there. Between the guys selling things and cars driving up and down there is almost no room for pedestrians to walk on the SIDEWALK.



Don't worry about me too much the cars that are one the sidewalk are only travelling about a mile per hour, so if they do hit you, you just hold your ground, turn around and start yelling at the driver to watch where he is going. He will also start yelling at you, but you just need to shrug it off. Cars on the sidewalk just make life more fun.

A Night in the Bathroom

It is pretty sad that even after living here more than two years my stomach still has not totally adjusted itself to the food. I must say when you are sick, and you can’t bend all that well, Squaty-Potties are just not the most helpful thing. I was thankful that the shower is right there to help with clean up. I will save you from the details, but I think this picture of my bathroom will give you a pretty good idea.