Through the Outhouse Floor

I have a hunch many women missionaries arrived on foreign soil with no idea their toilet needs would be so . . . um . . . challenging. (Click on I could envision how men could aim for that hole in the ground, but. . . . and Longing for a loo.)

“Did you notice that the slide bolt is missing off our outhouse door?” Barbara Thomas had asked. “And that floor sure didn’t last long. The boards must have been green. Already they’re rotting.”

In her memoir, Through the Outhouse Floor, Barbara Thomas writes that when she, her husband Paul, and their sons returned to Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) after their furlough in the U.S., repairs awaited them.

Barbara continues,

“One afternoon I grabbed a hammer, nails and a new slide bolt. I was tired of using a rock to keep the door shut every time I went to the outhouse. I placed the slide bolt on the door, matching it to its metal slot in the doorframe and penciled in where the nails should go.

“I opened the door, braced it against the wall, and hammered the slide bolt into place. The nails extended through the thin plank door. I banged the nails down flat on the other side.

“I stepped inside again and closed the door, sliding the bolt home. Perfect.

“I stepped back with a feeling of pride. My foot landed on a rotted section of flooring. The floor cracked and gave way.

“My left leg dangled over the fifteen-foot black hole. I felt like screaming for help but on further reflection I decided I didn’t want the entire village converging on the outhouse to see me in this predicament. Besides, the door was still bolted shut. . . .”

Barbara, undaunted, explained,

“Using my arms and free leg, all still at floorboard level, I hoisted myself up . . . unbolted the door and limped to the house.”

Barbara admitted the incident inflicted a slight wound to her pride, but just think—the experience provided her with the title for her memoir! (The old silver lining thing, right?)

You’ll enjoy Kim’s blog post reviewing Barbara’s Through the Outhouse Floor (and her review of my memoir, too, Grandma’s Letters from Africa).  

Longing for a loo

Looking back, I can't help but laugh at the things that stressed me during Kenya Safari, our three-month orientation to living and working in Africa. 

I can laugh now, but I wasn't laughing back then. In recent blog posts, I’ve been recalling my bellyaching about having to use a pit latrine. I’d never heard of pit latrines and never dreamed (nightmared) I’d use them. (Click on I could envision how men could aim for that hole in the ground, but, but—what about women?)

The day came, however, when I would’ve given almost anything for a pit latrine. In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote the following about day thirteen of Kenya Safari, our orientation course:

We left the shade and lush vegetation of Lake Naivasha and set out across the desert for our next phase of Kenya Safari, our orientation course.

Much of our route took us through The Great Rift Valley where, for three thousand miles, the surface of the earth is pulling apart, leaving a gaping scar across the earth’s face. The valley runs all the way from Mozambique to Syria, from southern Africa to southwestern Asia.

Eventually we stopped alongside the road to empty our bladders. Squatting down in a skirt was not the hardest part. The hardest part was the knowledge that wild creatures lived out there in the bush.

A woman on our orientation staff had told me about sitting in her outhouse in Zaire when she felt a sharp pain on her behind. She found two wounds, side by side, and nearly passed out wondering what kind of snake had made those fang marks.

In her panic, she radioed to request evacuation, only to discover later that those were not fang marks. No, she had found a chicken down inside that outhouse.

So there I stood in the dust of Africa with a full bladder. “Well,” I said to myself, wandering deeper into the bush to find a private place, “just because her bite turned out to be harmless, that doesn’t guarantee I’ll be as lucky.” Many a time I’d warned my kids, “It doesn’t always happen to the other guy, you know.”

Right then, I’d have given just about anything for one of those ghastly pit latrines.

Sigh. . . . All I ever wanted was to live in a little white house with a picket fence and a rose garden—and a toilet!

When I get to heaven, I plan to ask God why He created women . . . uh, how shall I say this? I plan to ask why He made bladder-emptying so inconvenient for women, compared to men.

Looking back all these years later, I realize that both pit latrines and wandering through the bush and longing for a loo were part of my African adventures, those happenings that bring a smile only when they’re all over. (from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 2)

My plans and dreams had been too small, too tame

I always imagined that when my grandchildren entered this world, I’d be a quaint little old grandmother—the kind that knits booties and bonnets for new grandbabies. The kind that sits in a rocking chair and sings infants to sleep.

But I was in for a surprise—and not a welcome one. Both God and my husband ganged up on me and hollered “Africa!”

I told you recently about a hippo that charged me: I escaped with five seconds to spare. How many other grandmas have been charged by a hippo?

And then I received an unpleasant introduction to pit latrines. How many other grandmas have ever had to use a pit latrine?

Originally, I had thought our rough wooden outhouses with black toilet seats were bad, but compared with pit latrines, those elevated, black toilet seats were, in my opinion, things of beauty.

I myself, however, was not a thing of beauty.

Without electricity, I couldn’t use a blow dryer or curling iron, and my hair was a disaster.

Nor could I use an iron, and my clothes stayed as wrinkled as when I wrung them out and pegged them on the line to dry. (They’re not clothespins in East Africa. They’re clothes pegs.)

Women wore skirts because, back then, Kenyans believe trousers revealed too much of a woman’s body.

I wore safari boots with my skirts and, oh, if my friends back home could have seen me! Everybody—my friends, my relatives, and even I—had always expected I’d live a genteel life in a little white house with a picket fence and a rose garden.

Instead, I was camping in Africa—with limp hair, wrinkled clothes, and no makeup.

Little by little, I was realizing God had not planned for me to be a genteel, quaint little lady.

Sometimes we need to let go of our dreams and plans

because God has bigger, better plans.

When that happens,

we need to figure out who we are

because we’re not who we thought we were—

I didn’t even look like what I thought I should.

I was transitioning into a different person

and a different dream.

I’d have to make other plans.

Letting go of old dreams and embracing new ones

is uncomfortable.  So uncertain.

But on the other hand,

since my plans and dreams had been too small, too tame,

what did God’s ongoing plans for me look like?

And would I embrace them with joy?

I could envision how men could aim for that hole in the ground, but, but—what about women?

Before Christmas, I told you about my too-close-for-comfort encounter with a hippo—a hippo that was charging me, only a few feet away.

Dave and I were participating in our three-month orientation for living and working in Africa, and one morning several of us had unzipped our tents and headed for the outhouse, only to find that a couple of hippos grazed among our tents. With long, razor-sharp tusks in mouths that open four feet wide, hippos are deadly. (If you missed it, click on I didn’t tell you the whole truth about a hippo charging me.)

When it became clear that hippo had not killed me or our fellow orientees, we all remembered we’d originally planned to head to the outhouse. By then, for some of us doing so was urgent!

       

A row of outhouses lined the edge of camp—rough wood planks and black toilet seats. The place was dark, stinky, and full of flies. Ugh.

Actually, we had two rows of outhouses. The second sat equally close to our site, but I wondered why no one ever used them. One day I checked them out.

I pulled open the wooden door and—I’d never seen anything like it. I saw only a hole in a concrete floor.

Only a hole.

       

In the floor.

But how did people use it? I stood there trying to figure it out. I could envision how men could aim for that hole, but, but—what about women? (Click here to see illustrations of pit latrines.)

Hmmm. Little by little—okayyyyy—I pictured how a woman might use such a hole.

I didn’t include the following in Grandma’sLetters from Africa, but this is what was going through my mind:

Think about it. If you were a woman wearing a long-ish skirt and underpants under that skirt, you couldn’t just pull them down and stand over the hole and pee—your underpants would be in the way. They’d get drenched.

If this makes you uncomfortable, skip the next five paragraphs. But if you’re curious, read on.

So, understand: You’re a woman wearing a skirt, underpants, hiking boots, and socks. This time, picture yourself—not standing above, but squatting over—that hole in the floor.

If you were to pull your underpants down around, say, your knees or calves, and then if you were to spread your legs and squat over that pit in the floor, what would happen to your underpants? They’d get stretched way out of proportion.

Within a few days, you’d have ruined the elastic. And if you had three more months of orientation in the bush, you really wouldn’t want to ruin the few pairs of underpants you owned.

Given that, the only way I can envision a woman using a pit latrine is this: 

You’d have to remove your boots (because it’s not easy to remove underpants over boots), and then you’d have to remove your underpants and figure out where to put them to keep them out of the filth on the floor because there are no hooks or shelves or anything. And then you could hitch up your skirt and squat down over that hole. What a hassle!

So there I stood, like a statue, staring at that hole in the ground, picturing myself or any other woman trying to use it, when suddenly the scene solved a mystery.

This explained the footprints I saw on the toilet seat

in the guesthouse bathroom we’d shared with others back in Nairobi.

The other rooms had housed Africans from rural places,

and it dawned on me,

standing in that outhouse at Lake Naivasha,

that some of them didn’t know how to use our kind of toilets

any more than I knew how to use theirs.

I shoved the door closed

and hurried back to the other outhouses,

the foul-smelling ones with black toilet seats.

From that moment on, those black toilet seats were,

in my opinion,

things of beauty.

(from Chapter 1, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

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