Everybody Poops

While this blog post is geared for those who aren’t in Peace Corps, as an attempt to show my life in Rwanda, it’s a subject that can only truly be understood by a Peace Corps Volunteer. PCVs only have the ADHD capacity to maintain one of three possible conversation topics. Sex. Food. Pooping. Hang out with any group of PCVs and inevitably the conversation will steer itself to one of those topics. To the outsider we may seem uncouth but to the untrained observer there are subtleties and nuances to each topic that require deep, prolonged, and often times revisited conversations.

It’s a wise decision, sometimes painfully learned, always to carry toilet paper and Pepto tablets. Spare underwear is also never a bad decision. And hand sanitizer (shorthanded, ha-get it?, to han-san). When visiting a foreign establishment’s toilet facilities for the first time, it’s always a tense moment. It all makes sense now why our mothers always asked, repeatedly, if we needed to use the potty before we left the house when we were children. It’s built into my subconscious now. If I don’t try and use the toilet before I leave I will invariably come to regret it later.

In my mind there is a map of every location of the tried and trusted toilet facilities of every credible toilet in every city/town in Rwanda I have ever used. I always make a mental note of my proximity to those toilets and any obstacles in my way, should the occasion occur for me to Jason Bourne my way through to the ceramic seat or malodorous abyss of a latrine. This may seem excessive but it’s preparedness like this that saves pants’ lives.

My home territory is a different story though. Some (read: all) of you back home will find this off putting but I’m all about being candid. I have a pee bucket. Don’t worry, it has a lid. Why the bucket? Because walking the 15 seconds from my room to the latrine is a bitch when it’s after dark (that’s only moderately sarcastic). But seriously, after everyone in my house (I live with 3 other people) has gone to bed and the door is locked, those 15 seconds become an odyssey that separates mice from men. I am neither mouse nor man, thus pee bucket. What exactly have I experienced to make me resort to the bucket?

• creepy crawly things on the walls (usually with a missing appendage and dark black eyes that reach into your soul and terrify your unborn children)
• frogs who always decide that their best time to move is when I walk past them and who always decide that their target destination is anywhere where skin is showing
• a chicken who, for god knows what reason, decided to roost in the latrine and got all hot and bothered when I opened the door
• stepping on dead things (or stepping on living things that subsequently become dead things)

However, we are getting off topic. The bucket is strictly a one purpose bucket. Number two requires the trip to the latrine. Here is a picture to help you understand.

As far as latrines go mine is like a Honda. It’s reliable, designed well and it takes your from point A to point B. It’s got raised spots for your feet so you don’t need to worry about soiling your shoes. The catch (because there’s always a catch in this country) is found in the picture below.

This is the locking mechanism for my latrine. Some (read: all) of you might be confused.

You:    Tim, this is string. String traditionally doesn’t serve well as a lock.

Me:     I’m an unconventional, pees-in-a-bucket kind of guy.

To keep the door shut you need to hold onto the string while squatting. It can sometimes be precarious, like when you’re groggy after a night of heavy drinking at a teacher’s meeting, but we all have our life challenges. However, the fallibility of the string-as-lock was learned firsthand today. When finished with business it’s common to use both hands to put pants back to their full and upright position. The use of both hands requires letting go of the lock to do this pants maneuver and tighten a belt. It just so happened that at the exact moment I let go of the string-lock to move both my body and pants to their full and upright positions that I heard the muffled yet hurried footsteps of someone in desperate need of a latrine. Time was against me. The intruder beat me to the punch. He opened the door. I was in what in any other circumstance might be construed as a yoga pose, if yoga poses involved pants to be knee high, your face to be deer-in-headlights, arm outstretched in utter futility and mouth ajar with exasperations of “UHH… NDIHERENOHANOOUTGETOUTIHEREOYAAAA!!!!”

A little Kinyarwanda lesson: ndi-I am, hano-here, oya-no

Everyone back home, appreciate the modern conveniences life in the West affords you. Like stringless locks. And knocking.