Teach me how to tumpen

So I was sitting in my room last night thinking about how it was probably time to bath since feeling clean is a rare commodity in my life. Really hot weather + dirt roads = very dirty Ashley. Luckily, there’s a magical thing in my possession that lets me bathe even though I am sans shower for the next long while. And since I figured most of you envision bathing as either a shower or bathtub activity, I thought a tumpen how-to would be in order. (Bonus points if you play the Teach Me How To Dougie song during this)

Disclaimer: I’ve only been here a week, so my technique isn’t all that spectacular. In fact, I know I’m doing it wrong because I end up with water everywhere. But I have the basics down and end up clean so that’s all that matters, right? Right.

To start us off, I realized I wasn’t the only one in need of a bath. And this someone else makes a way better model than I do because, let’s be honest, who wants to see me modeling taking a bath? Nobody. Pretty sure that’s illegal anyway. You may recognize my model as the lovely Kanina Krijonlin who takes no risks posing during bath time.

In order to tumpen, a few items are necessary. As you can see, these are a stool, towel, shampoo, soap, a soap dish (it’ll make sense later, I promise), a tumpen, some water, and someone in need of a bath.

The first part to be washed is the upper part of the body. The tumpen goes on top of the stool to make things easier. Here you see Kanina leaning over the edge in order to get all nice and rinsed in order to get sudsy later. (Microsoft Word says sudsy is a real word – who knew?)

Next comes the lower half. The trick is to wash everything except for your feet because usually they’re gross and turn the water black, which makes washing really really gross. I haven’t quite figured out the best way to go about it so I’m still experimenting. One way is to sit on the stool and go from there.

The other is to get in the tumpen and do a little bird bath. I generally go for a combination and hope I get everything. This is where the soap container comes in handy because it makes for a great ladle. Magical rinsing. Usually I fail, but I’m generally clean. I would have taken a before and after picture of the water after washing my feet, but we went to the river Saturday and I’m still amazingly clean from that, so the water wasn’t black. But usually it is. I’m gross.

Next you’re supposed to dump that water out (into the outhouse) and get new water to wash your hair. I still feel clean from the river and have yet to get all of the shampoo out of my hair when I tumpen, so I put that off. But Kanina did not make the river trip so her ears/hair had to get all squeaky clean:

In the end, a successful bath in that the dirt is gone. Here we are, all clean from our evening bath:

What I would give for a shower or bathtub because my poor body is so sore. Or a chiropractor – could someone send me one of those? That’d be great. But on that note, if someone could email me a list of the Clean&Clear facewash types and their corresponding colors/bottle designs I’d be eternally grateful. It’s available here, but it’s in Russian and shockingly enough, I don’t know the words for all of the different skin types. Thanks J And I’m going to try to update the “Send me Things” page with care package ideas if anyone has the overwhelming desire to send a package. Nothing is NEEDED and I’m fine without all of it, but mail is the highlight of my life. Send me letters!