This was the day I was dreading. My first squatty potty. I thought that a toilet with no seat was bad, but this hole in the ground? I had heard about these, but this would be my first time.
After all the years of beating my knees, I am thankful when they don´t cause me pain when I walk. But getting down in a deep squat for long enough to get it all out, I was not confident of this. When I go camping, pooping in the woods is one of the things that I dread, I usually wait until the last minute, but always find some nice set up, or branch to hold or tree to lean against. Not here.
The bathroom at Pastor Marino´s house is mud walls about 5 feet high, and a potato sack for a door. When I stand to pee in the hole, I can have a conversation with the others, because the bathroom is less than twenty feet from the kitchen or the dining room.
I looked at these mud walls and worried that if I leaned my back against them, they might come down, all I could do was squat and hope that I maintained balance.
I held out for two days. And then, it was an emergency. So I ran in, pants to my knees, and did my best squat. Bullseye. Right in the hole. Then my quads started to burn. My legs started to shake, and I was only half done. I was going to have to stand up, or fall. So I did my best pinch, and wiped, to ensure there was nothing going to fall in my jeans. Once my legs stopped shaking, I went for my second set to failure. This time I failed much sooner, and went through all this again. After holding out for two days, I had a lot of work to do, but the body was weak, and I needed to rest. So I wasn´t done going, but I was done.
I don´t know if it was the food, the altitude, or people dreading the bathroom, but this week was the worst smelling week for our whole team, and I´m not sure whether to throw my underwear away or wash them.
