Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
A day that will go down in infamy. No it’s not D-day, not even war related.
March 28th was pretty much the most embarrassing day of my life. And probably the most embarrassing day of the pastor’s life here in Musho.
After lunch on that afternoon I made it clear to everyone that I was going to take a shower. You may think that’s kind of a weird thing to do, and it would be weird, except that the shower is not separated from the toilet. It’s all one room, and there is no curtain separating the two entities. There is only one piece of tarp separating the shower/ toilet from the great outdoors. And when the wind blows, the tarp is a little iffy.
So, I told everyone to take their bathroom breaks before I headed in there to shower. And everyone heeded that advice. After all were finished with the facilities, I took my shampoo, conditioner, soap, and towel into the bathroom. I arranged the tarp so that it would provide the door with as much coverage as possible, so that no one could mistake that someone was using the bathroom. (The bathroom rule is when you finish, open the curtain so that everyone knows the bathroom is open for the next customer.)
Apparently the locals here were not informed of this rule. I had completely disrobed and had just turned on the shower water when pastor Josue ducked his head inside the curtain (I think he was going to take the trash can, which is really just a cardboard box, to discard the used toilet paper). I absolutely freaked out, and jumped back into the brick wall. The wall was sloppily put together, so globs of dried cement protrude from the bricks, which makes for one very scratched up bum when one jumps backwards into walls.
And once I had covered all the censored areas, I let out a couple of blood-curdling screams. At this point, which was merely a fraction of a second or two, Josue looked up, had a look of shock, and jumped out of the curtain. I didn’t quite know what to do at that point… do I finish showering, or just put my clothes back on and go into my room and crawl into a fetal position?
I figured the water was already running, so I finished showering, although I kept a very keen eye on the bathroom curtain, which seemed like an eternity away from where I was standing. Once I was finished, I dressed, ran out of the bathroom and darted to my room. I found Scott lying in bed wondering what he should do, or should have done (as he had come running outside once he heard my screams).
After a few hours of tears, and mixed feelings, I can now report this afternoon as the most embarrassing moment of my adult life.
