electric coil + water

Yesterday was again a day of first time experiences. I did my first hand wash load of laundry. With language barrier and the people's explanations/directions being different, it leads us to my mistake. Brent and I were given two plastic buckets to fill with water for bathing and washing clothes. We were also given a piece of coiled metal. While I didn't really understand how this could be remotely safe or even work, I asked for explanation several times. She kept repeating that you stick the coil into the bucket of water to heat it as you plug it in the wall. Simple enough, right? We have two guys living in the same "apartment" and one of the guys was sitting at the computer and walked me through it one more time from across the room. I somehow stuck in the coil without electrifying myself, but after a while we were sitting in the common room and he looks confused at me and asks what a noise was. I'm thinking it's a normal noise for this strange contraption, but we jump up, see smoke rising. I had melted two large holes through the bucket and melted the plastic all over the back of the coil. He couldn't believe that I mangled the bucket and heater like that and that, nor why I didn't put it in the designated metal pail...My thoughts exactly...we weren't ever given such a pail to begin with...Well,learning the hard way, but eventually finished the laundry in his pail, hung it out to dry on the roof and breathed a sigh of relief (and hoped the monkeys wouldn't come back on the roof and steal it)
Another day in India...another adventure