I’ve already admitted
my angst over living for three months without a proper toilet.
Instead, my
only choice was a pit latrine. Well, maybe not my only option—I could have squatted
down behind bushes, but with wild animals and snakes and biting insects also
hiding in those bushes, that option would have been worse than a pit latrine. And
besides, at least our latrine had a yellow plastic tarp around it for privacy.
 |
| My friend Joy outside our pit latrine |
Have you ever
noticed how comforting it is to know you’re not alone in your suffering? With
that, today I’ll share a story from missionary B. Arnold about . . . well, you
know. . . .
B. admits to
life-long anxieties about restrooms and says that when she arrived in Burkina
Faso, West Africa, she was introduced to “the thrills and chills” of
“multi-bathroom experiences” and concluded she needed to make some changes.
In this
excerpt from her article, Bathrooms of the World, she recounts her first trip
to a village for an open-air evangelism campaign:
“We were greeted
and then led into a very nice courtyard where we were fed supper by the host
family. After supper I used the facilities in their yard which consisted of a three-sided
mud brick building with no roof and a hole in the center of the cement floor.
“The hole in
the center of the floor meant that this outhouse [unlike some others] was a
multi-purpose unit and could be used for all ‘needs.’ For a bush village these
were very deluxe accommodations. The ‘outhouse’ provided for some semblance of
privacy and luxury as well.
“Once the veil
of darkness fell upon the village we began our open air evangelism campaign but
part way through the service I had to once again use the ‘facilities.’ It was
then that I realized that I had forgotten my flashlight. I asked one of the
pastors if I could borrow his and he gladly loaned it to me for my little
private moment. . . .
“I entered
into the deluxe accommodations
and then
discovered my dilemma:
what to do
with the flashlight
while making
use of the hole?
If I placed
the flashlight on the wall
I could not
see to find the hole
and if I held
the flashlight
I could not
manage my dress while busy.
What to do?
What to do?
“… My only
choice would be
to place the
flashlight in my mouth
(yes I know
that it was dirty!)
and then be as
quick as possible before I gagged. . . .
“I looked down
to find the hole and when I did, the flashlight shone down into the dark abyss.
Soon I was ‘busy’ and at almost the same time thousands of giant cockroaches
began pouring out of the hole having been disturbed by the light.
“I could not
scream as the borrowed flashlight would fall into the hole—I could not stop—and
I could not stand still. Soon I was dancing back and forth, stomping and tromping
and shaking off the critters as they tried to crawl up my legs! . . .
“Finally I was
able to leave the ‘deluxe’ facilities and leaned against the wall trying to
compose myself. I began to shake at the thought of it all and then just as
suddenly, I began to laugh. . . . I must have been a site [sic] to behold.
“I’m sure that
the people who were watching the beam of light dancing around and around in the
dark [from inside that roofless outhouse] must have wondered what in the world
that crazy American woman was doing. . . .” (B. Arnold, ©Women of the Harvest
Magazine, Sept/Oct, 2001. www.womenoftheharvest.com. Now part of Thrive Ministry
and The Thrive Ministry Magazine. Excerpts used by permission.)
Originally published July 22, 2010
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