Many Cuban showers had a device that most Americans would find really shocking! We're talking about an electric showerhead! These devices are still a common sight in many Cuban homes, where you'll see two electrical wires running down from the ceiling and into the shower head.

At the Castillo house in Cayo la Rosa, the showerhead consisted of a two-inch long pipe with a carbon element in the middle. The Castillo's carbon core rod had been cannibalized from an old crank-type telephone battery. One wire was connected to the carbon element and the other wire was attached to the pipe. The cable then had to be plugged into an electrical outlet on the wall outside the shower!

"There is a common belief in Cuba that 110 volts won't kill you, no matter how wet you are," Jorge says.

Operating the electric shower head was a tricky undertaking. You had to first adjust the water flow to just the right amount -- in practice little more than a trickle. If you ran the water too fast, it would not get hot enough as it passed over the hot carbon element. If you ran the water too slow, the element would burn out. The procedure for taking a shower went like this: First you had to enter the shower and get the water flowing just right. Then you had to leave the shower, and plug the cable into the wall outlet. The number one rule? When taking a shower, never touch the shower head!

"Once I was taking a shower and I made the mistake of turning the water completely off," says Jorge. "By the time I realized what I had done, the carbon element had overheated and when I quickly turned the water back on it literally exploded, covering my entire body with black carbon!"

Jorge's parents came running in to see the blackened Jorge dancing around and screaming his head off, thinking that he had been electrocuted.

"For months after that we had to take our showers with a hose in the backyard," Jorge reports.

Luckily, Jorge's family had another device to fall back on, the electric water heating can. This one consisted of a large rectangular five-gallon cooking oil can, a wooden handle, and a smaller tin can. One wire was wrapped around the wooden handle and connected to the tin can, which was submerged about half way into the water in the larger can. The other wire was connected to the oil can. When plugged into a wall outlet, the water in the can got hot real fast! This heated water was no good for showers obviously, but worked great for washing up at the sink!