Thursday, July 9, 2009

Aren't Latrines Wonderful

So I have a latrine. This isn't probably a news flash since you know I don't have running water in my house. But I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about why latrines are such a joy to have. Incident one happened during my first year of service. I was standing in my latrine lifting the cover so that I could go pee. I had done this hundreds of times before, not a problem right? Not more than 10 sec after lifting the cover off a bat flew out of my latrine and at me. Needless to say I panicked, screamed and did a lot of waving my arms around. Ever since this I have taken to rattling the latrine cover a bit before I lift it up in hopes of making any such creatures fall to the ground before I lift up. The second incident happened just last week. Since my first year I've gotten pretty lax about covering my latrine. It's mostly due to the fact that I share it with the other people in my concession and they never ever cover it so it seems futile most of the time. Anyway, this time around I had hiked up my skirt and was standing on the little foot pedestal things squatting when I look down into the latrine and see a big mouse (i refuse to believe it was a rat) climbing the walls out of the latrine pit. Because I was in mid-going to the bathroom I couldn't leave my spot and had to just stand there motionless and hope that the mouse paid me no mind as it continued to climb out of the latrine pit and up the walls of my latrine on the the roof.

For the most part I don't really mind using a latrine. It's a pain when I'm not feeling well and I have to leave my house 20x a day and walk across my yard and the creatures that live there are definitely not friends of mine. But since becoming reliant on one it has shown me how much water a toilet uses and how wasteful they are. Just something to think about.

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