Pooping in a Hole Ain't For the Faint of Heart

After 2 years in Ethiopia there are several things that I miss about my life in America.  Of course there are also many things that I don’t miss at all like paying bills, being on time, drama, 50-hour work weeks and the general stress and pressure of “keeping up” with everyone around me.  However, one thing that I miss the most is a very simple event that took place every single day in my previous life. That is- waking up in the morning, rolling out of my big, comfy bed and walking barefoot into the bathroom.  It’s a routine that my body did instinctively every morning with very little thought.  You’ve probably done it yourself, hundreds of times, without appreciating the beauty and simplicity of the act.

Let me tell you what it’s like in Ethiopia when I have to go to the bathroom first thing in the morning.  I wake up, roll off my uncomfortable little cot, untangle myself from my mosquito net, put on a bra (‘cause no one needs to see everything jiggling around!), put on pants and maybe a sweater if it’s a cool morning, put on shoes, grab toilet paper, unlock and open my front door, walk outside to the back of the compound, use the shint bet (literal translation “urine house”), walk back inside my house and wash my hands.  I’m not so good with math, but that’s like 438% more work than my old morning routine in America.  And unlike America, this morning routine actually requires brainpower.  Since it is very typical that if I’m in my house alone, then I’m not wearing pants (a new habit that I blame completely on my mom!), it was just last week that I had to poop so badly that I almost ran outside without any pants on.  I had my hand on the handle, about to open the door when luckily I looked down at my naked legs just in time.  That would have shocked the neighbors considering the one time I answered the door in shorts I nearly gave my landlord a heart attack! (Kneecaps and shoulders are not acceptable body parts to be shown in public in this neck of the woods

Shint bet

“What exactly is this ‘urine house’?” you may ask.  Well, I welcome your inquisitiveness. The shint bet is a dark little mud room with a hole dug into the floor. Under the floor is a deeper, cleared out area sort of like a septic tank, except when this septic tank gets full there may be an unfortunate splash back affect when you squat over the hole and drop a deuce.  Depending on circumstance a shint bet may or may not have a door that closes.  It may or may not have a light. If there is water in town that day, there may be a bucket of water and pitcher to wash the area.  If it is shared by multiple people, it may have random poop on the floor from someone who missed the hole.  It certainly does not have toilet paper so bring your own unless you want to drip dry.  If you’re really fancy, it might have a porcelain basin built in. It is probably smelly.  It’s probably full of flies.  You basically want to get in and out as quickly as possible.  There’s no reading the newspaper on the toilet scenario happening here.  Luckily, according to the internet, squatting to relieve yourself is a more natural and healthier position than sitting, so generally things just flow better and it’s a fairly quick process. 

There is a certain art to successfully peeing or pooping into a little hole in the ground, especially for us ladies who are used to sitting down to do our business.  As someone who loathes camping (or really any activity that boasts of fresh air) I never had an occasion to practice my “squatting to pee skills” before coming to Ethiopia.  Early in my Peace Corps experience I was cautioned to “never touch the walls in a shint bet” as they would miserably fail a CSI-eque black light test.  When I was young I earned the nickname Grace, for my inability to walk without falling, tripping or knocking into something, so naturally I was a little worried about my lack of balance.  In my first few weeks of adjusting to using a shint bet, I would cautiously press one finger against the wall in order to stay in an upright position.  Once I dared to take my finger off the wall, I actually did lose what little balance I had and was about to fall over with my pants down when I had to make a split-second decision to either reach out and hold onto the forbidden wall or wind up face down on the infinitely more disgusting floor.  I chose the wall and promptly washed my hands with extra soap when I was done.

Another tip for successful shint bet use is to avoid unknown shint bets whenever possible.  In order to avoid the potential horrors of a shint bet I’ve never seen before, I usually dehydrate myself all day long until I know that I will be returning home to my familiar, semi-clean, at least I know what I’m getting shint bet.  Sometimes, however the unknown shint bet is unavoidable.  Once, I was in a very small town with some Ethiopian friends, and we had stopped for some lunch.  In case you don’t know, I’m pretty famous in some circles for my amazing bladder control, but in this instance it had been several hours and I just couldn’t hold it any more.  I cautiously asked a young girl working at the restaurant if there was a shint bet.  She led me back into a field where there were four poles sticking out of the ground with a plastic tarp roof overhead.  In the middle of this contraption were 2 holes in the ground, but no doors or walls.  With my lack of language skills, I gestured to the little girl to ask which hole I was to use.  She pointed to the hole that literally had the most massive pile of poop just behind the hole where apparently a blind man had missed his target.  After seeing the horrified look on my face, the girl ventured closer to see for herself and kindly pushed the giant turd into the hole with a stick.  Now that I was free to do my business, I was so worried that someone was going to wander back to this shint bet without walls and see the white girl peeing that I rushed the process and ended up peeing all over my purse which was hanging cross-body.  As I walked back to my friends with my urine-soaked purse, I couldn’t help but laugh at what a disgusting person I had become.

 I am proud to say that after 2 years I’ve greatly improved my aim, balance and over-all shint bet skills.  Some Peace Corps volunteers become true shint bet aficionados, proselytizing the virtues of shint bets over toilets, but not this girl.  No way.  I will be happy to return to the land of flush toilets.  I think it’s funny when American women complain about public restrooms, having to squat in order not to touch a toilet seat that has been used by an unknown number of butts.  My squatting days will soon be over.  Until I contract a strange butt disease, I will joyfully sit on any and every public toilet I come across.  Bring it on, America!  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to put my shoes on and go take a poop.

Information from highly credible internet doctors