If you are under the illusion of any of the following things, then please do not read the rest of this blog:
That girls do not poop
That the trip I am on is glamorous and embarrassment free
That restrooms work the same way in every country
That poop stories are not appropriate
that poop stories are not funny
You're still reading? Congratulations on good judgment. Please think no differently of me after this. I can guarantee that this story is the first of many that I will refer to from this point on as "The Poop Diaries".
Poop Diaries chapter 1. Where's the door?
You may recall from a previous blog of mine that while in a small, obscure, rustic village in the mountains, my friend Amanda and I were struck by the sudden urge to use the restroom. Immediately. She and I wandered around the area in search of a restroom or the one man in the village who spoke English, rather than Kiche, the native Mayan language. Upon finding him, we conveyed the urgency of our need and he directed us down a steep hill, at the bottom of which was a small cement building. We were overjoyed at the idea of a real restroom because we had become accustomed to hovering over cement blocks in the middle of aluminum shacks. We picked our way down the hill, through the brush, towards the cement building when we realized that there was a large gathering of villagers standing around the it. We immediately became concerned that the people were all waiting for their turn to use the restroom, but as we got closer we saw that they were just gathered there to chat. We also saw that the cement building held two desperate stalls, neither of which had doors. The location that the villagers had chosen as the social hot spot was located directly in front of the doorless stalls, approximately 7 feet from the toilet.
Naturally we were thrilled about the situation and argued over who got to go first. That's only half true. Now, you may remember that there were two separate stalls, so we could both go at the same time. Not the case. One stall was inaccessible due to the fact that a Guatemalan man was occupying it in a very public manner. As we formulated a plan we began to realize that all of the men women and children gathered around us were blatantly staring at us. Enhancing the experience.
Amanda kindly offered to let me go first, so I stepped into the open space and slowly began pulling down my pants as all 37 people stared at me. Fortunately a kind bystander picked up on our subtle awkwardness and lent us her shawl. Amanda held it up where a door should be while I went to the bathroom. As I looked around I realized that there was no toilet paper. About 30 seconds later a small hand shot behind the makeshift door with a roll of toilet paper. My own small Guatemalan savior. Immediately after I realized that there was no trashcan to throw my toilet paper away in (that's how we do it in the Guat). And after that I realized that there was no water to flush the toilet. A little bit mortified I told Amanda that she would just have to go without me flushing because we had no means to dispose of anything. Fortunately about 1 minute after panicking a small child came running down the hill with a large bucket of water. My second Guatemalan savior.
After I was finally able to flush, Amanda stepped in and I took over the sarong door holding. She admitted to me that she had stage fright, probably due to the entire village hovering a step away from our material makeshift door, and couldn't "go". I tried to live up to every loud american stereotype that these people most likely had of us in order to block out the noise of what was happening behind the material door. Finally everything was finished and we returned the defiled sarong to the poor kind woman who had lent it to us. As we walked back up the hill Amanda encouraged me to run due to a malfunctioning toilet flush. And so we ran, away from the horribly embarrassing story that has become one of my favorite memories of the Race thus far.
