Awwww Shit!

*The first half of this blog was written in mid December 2011* Being the proud Mainer that I am I have owned a pair of Bean boots (see picture for image, incase you don’t know what they are.) for about eight years now.

I’ve been on all sorts of Maine adventures with them from a walk in the woods, getting stuck in ocean mudflats, and braving down easters with them. I debated bringing them with me to Georgia with me because of limited packing space. I sat on my wooden hallway floor by my bedroom debating the pros and cons and they made the cut and got added to my 100lbs checked bags combined weight. (Who am I kidding? I always knew they were coming. Got to represent Maine in style.) My Bean boots and I are on a new kind of adventure now a days that I could have never imagined. They are now, pardon the term, my shitting boots. Thats right my Bean boots are now my bathroom footwear. You are most likely sitting in is your cozy house back in America reading this. I want you to get up and go to your favorite toilet in where you ever you are and give it a hug. I am dead serious right now. Come on. Go. I’ll wait right here while you do this little exercise. ... ... ... *Me waiting* ... ... ... Thank you for that. I don’t normally ask my reading audience to do such things, but you will understand why in a bit. Now imagine that precious porcelain chair is gone and replaced with a dirt covered stone slab, that has a hole cut into with two stone blocks a little bigger then bricks that are strategically placed around said hole. Surrounding the stone slab is a little shack like structure made out of wood slats and a metal roof and is situated about 30 feet from the house. Is it coming together yet? I have a “squat” outhouse for a toilet. That’s right for the past week and a half I have been going to the bathroom in a hole in the ground.

I normally never talk about any bodily functions in front of anyone besides the family that lives in my house and if I do say anything to someone else it is usually “I need to go to the bathroom”. I however will sacrifice myself to inform you on an issue that has become very real for volunteers here and as my Aussie friend Alex said when I told him about my situation “You know, someday you will look back on this and laugh”. Well, I’m not 100% sure I am at a laughing point yet, but seriously this is really funny when I think about it like its someone else. If you can’t handle bowel movements you may just want to stop reading right now, if you can read on. Monday the 12th, my host mother showed be the toilet, the one I described above, and I just nodded my head and let out a silent scream inside that included a lot of swear words. I then fallowed her inside to eat lunch and tried to forget about what I had just seen. After a while it sunk in, that I was suppose to go to the bathroom there. A slight panic over took me and I kept thinking “This can’t be it. This has to be a joke. Ok Georgian Candid Camera you can come out now and show me my brand new shinny toilet!” They never came. I guess now would be a good time to mention that its not so much that its a hole in the ground as, its not an actual “western” toilet. I’m not the girl who ever learned to “pop a squat”. I’m not a huge camping fan so I never really need to learn how. The sheer mechanics of not getting my jeans soaked seemed to baffle me and the holding it game began. The first night in my new home I held it. I went to school the fallowing day and all the volunteers had been warned about the school bathrooms, but I hoped that the teachers had a gleaming special teacher one. I was wrong. That afternoon I was shown to, two outdoor squat toilets. God Damn It! I thought. After school I was taken with my principal and two co-teachers to the regional resource center for TLG. Once I got there I promptly asked if they had a bathroom. I was shown down the hallway and when I saw they were western toilets, I kid you not, I did a happy dance and tried to keep in a shriek of glee. During my first few days I was having a slight melt down. I tried to eat and drink as little as possible so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom. When my mother called from America I started crying telling her that I didn’t know what to do. Trust me I am 99% sure there is no western toilet in my village. There is no McDonlds or gas station to go to. My mother swung into full Mama Otter mode and naturally called and e-mailed someone to get this all fixed. It was decided that I would switch families after I got back from spending most of my winter break in Ukraine, in the mean time I had about a week and a half to hold on. (Turn that into a poop joke if you want.) After a few days of me freaking out I reasoned that I just needed to put on my big girl pants and learn how to go to the bathroom. After all it most likely would be one of those skills I would learn and never regret knowing it. Well putting my big girl pants on turned out to be more of me taking my skinny jeans off and putting a dress and my Bean boots on. I am sorry to say, but I just don’t understand how to go pee with pants on. I understand the mechanics, but over all I just don’t want to chance it as I don’t get to wash my clothes that often, so dress it is. It also makes sense why so many women wear dresses and skirts here. You all are so smart. Bean boots are a natural choice for any urine covered surface. I am sure my host family finds it amusing when I run down from my room it my bathroom outfit, bare legged in the middle of December. Also to add to there amusement, I’m sure of it, I had a nasty fall a week or so ago that resulted in both my knees being bruised and one got scuffed up pretty badly and the cold makes the marks stand out even more so my legs look awesome. Over all it really isn’t that bad of a situation, now that I have gotten use to it, but then again I can just think of all the horrible things that could happen if this stayed my toilet. The most amusing one that keeps me laughing is the thought of me trying to use it completely wasted in stilettos. First off my host mother doesn’t approve of me drinking. Second there is no place to really drink in my village, no local bar. I could drink in the street I guess. Third there is no one to drink with, I did however see one of my students drinking a beer one day after school. I just kept walking. Fourth I don’t drink. I could just imagine me trying to place my feet in my heels on those stupid blocks and falling with my face landing perfectly in the hole and being so drunk I just kind of lay there laughing in the middle of the night because I knew this would happen, covered in other people’s excrement. What a shitty mess that would be. (Come on it would be kind of funny, if it wasn’t me.) There was also the point brought up that I am perfectly healthy right now, but what would I do if I got sick and had some intestinal issues. That would blow chunks. Part Two. When I left my village in late December and arrived at my hostel in Tbilisi actually used a western toilet, I kind of thought “hmm is this sanitary? I mean who else has sat here?” It took me a couple of days to readjust to my life of western comforts, but I did it. A week ago I was out walking through farm land and I came across a house that was being built and there was a straight up out house for the workers I assume. I had been out shooting all morning and I had, had a cup of coffee on my bus ride to the countryside, so I opened it and peered in and well you can see how it looks from the picture. You better believe that I used that bad boy. When I met my friend at a market a little bit after, he gave me a look that seemed to say “I knew that you were different, but this toilet business is starting to get out of control.” I’ve become a toilet connoisseur in the past month and a half really.

A few nights ago I went to a bar in Lviv and they had a squat toilet, which took me completely by surprise as this was a new bar, and any other one I had ever been into in Lviv had normal western toilets. (Trust me I have been to almost all of them here, even the Harry Potter one.) I looked down at my winter boots that went up to my knees and skinny jeans and knew I had no other option. I didn’t have my bathroom cloths with me and I really, really had to go. It was probably a good thing that I was slightly drunk, because I just went on auto pilot and went for it. I am so proud to say that I did it perfectly, especially after hearing how a Canadian girl in my group, just sat down on the Turkish toilet because she couldn’t figure it out. I felt like I could do anything after that. I feel like I am a master of bathrooms now, however I do not want to test my skills anytime soon when I’m ill.