The Flow of Things

DISCLAIMER: If you are easily disgusted, this blog posting is not for you! In this posting I will be discussing many things related to my bowels and what moves me…. So read with caution!

I will start with the squatty potty. Yes, I have used squatty potties before, especially when I visited India last summer, but I have to admit that this seems like a completely different experience from what I experienced there. First, in my dad’s home in Kerala, we had a regular Western-style toilet, meaning I could sit on it and it flushed, so I was pretty spoiled. Here, even if you have a toilet on which you can sit, it doesn’t flush. You just pour scoopfuls of water into it until whatever you deposited goes down permanently. This really is an art form… there’s a certain motion and a flick of the wrist that ensure proper disposal. In India I usually tried to hold any bodily functions, if possible, until I was able to find an acceptable toilet… but that doesn’t really work here. The potties are almost all squatty potties, especially the ones at the places I frequent most (home, school, friends’ houses, public offices), and the only places you are likely to find sitting toilets are western restaurants (like KFC, McDonald’s, or Pizza Hut) or hotels…none of which I regularly visit.

Second, we had toilet paper. They do not use TP here. They do not have the plumbing capabilities to facilitate the disposal of the TP, so instead they have big tubs of water and a bucket that you can use to pour water to clean yourself. That is not so easy to do, especially when you are squatting over, essentially, a hole in the ground and trying to balance yourself. Third, in India we had these squirting hose things that made it much easier to clean yourself. In Indonesia, I have only seen these squirting hoses in hotels or nice restaurants; they are not at all common. This brings me to the problem that has troubled me immensely… pouring with one hand while cleaning with the other. There is a reason the left hand is called the “dirty hand.” It is extremely disturbing, especially when using a public squatty potty where there is no soap… my friends and I all carry hand sanitizer with us wherever we go.

So from there I will continue on to what made us frequent those lovely squatty potties so regularly… diarrhea! For at least the first 2-3 weeks at our training sites it seemed like the rhea was a constant companion of mine. Whether it was a spicy meal, some improperly cleaned fruit, or water that wasn’t sufficiently purified, it all seemed to want to come out in a hurry. It was nothing major or threatening, just normal phenomenons while our bodies, and our stomachs in particular, adjusted themselves to their new conditions. During those first few weeks, I always made sure to have ready access to a toilet immediately after all my meals…just in case. Luckily, in the short time we’ve been there have only been a few cases of bad diarrhea in our group, but nothing too extreme or dangerous. I’m hoping to stay rhea-free for the rest of my trip…keep all your fingers crossed, please!

Mandi. To Bathe. We have neither showers nor bathtubs. Instead there are huge cement vats that hold water that is pumped from a well behind our house every day. There are little plastic dippers that you use to scoop cold (freezing cold!) water onto yourself. There is no hot water! I’m not sure I will ever get used to the cold mandis, but it does get easier. I always have to mentally prepare myself for the first scoop…it’s always the worst…but then your body gets used to the temperature. One great thing about the mandi is that it does promote water conservation, in its own way. When you only have that cold water, you have all the incentive in the world to get out of that bathroom as quickly as possible! There is no lingering, hour-long shower or bath here.

At the beginning of our Peace Corps journey it seemed like squatty potties and cold mandis would be some of the biggest challenges we faced, but after this short amount of time here we have realized that these are the least of our problems and have quickly become second nature.