day 23 :: toilets/choos [retroactive]

This is our latrine. This is the pit into which Wallace fell. This is the source of much angst since I arrived. This is the reason I sat crying under a porch on the first day I was here. No one had mentioned the pit latrine.

In defense of the pit latrine, I have to say that I’m pretty much used to it. I hardly mind it anymore, except in the heat of the middle of the day, but that’s due to the fact that the shed is made out of metal. Even a shiny clean toilet seat wouldn’t make it less hot in there in the middle of the day. And it’s less gross than a sit down toilet that is too dirty to sit on. Since the ladies we hired to clean feel that cleaning is beneath them, there is very little cleaning that occurs around here. I think a pit latrine is the best possible option, given all these circumstances. Also, a stripey lizard and a big spider have moved in there and they keep the flies down.

In defense of Africa, I have to say that this is the first time I’ve ever had to use a pit latrine on a regular basis. Many people in Africa do use pit latrines or the great outdoors and I’ve had to use them while traveling, but I have always had a real toilet in my hotels and my houses (minus those weeks in a village when I was a baby, but at that point I was using diapers, so no problem). In fact, Rwanda made me a bit of a toilet snob. I used to stop at the Intercontinental Hotel just to use the clean toilets and the good-smelling soap.

Don’t not visit Africa because of this latrine.

By way of contrast, this is my toilet once I moved into a self-contained room in Elsewhere:

Isn’t that pretty? Pretty, pretty, pretty?