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)