The Ultimate Cultural Divisor
There are a few things in life that define us. Our food, our attire, our beliefs as a society. But when you really look at what divides this world, it is not our beliefs. It is our toilets.
Most Americans have no conception that there are other versions of the venerable crapper in existence. I first pondered this some years ago, while sitting at a Denny's, where all my significant revelations occurred at the time. Across the very busy six lane street was a drainage ditch, adjacent to a gas station. As I sat vacantly staring out the window, I saw an Asian man pull down his pants, and take a crap right there in the ditch.
Now, in the part of the world that I am from, we have a fair amount of Asians. They have arrived for decades, from Viet Nam, Japan, Korea, China. At one point, they arrived by the boatload, refugees of yet another political misadventure in their homeland. So we are used to Asians, they are the backdrop of our northwestern lives. Yet I had never seen one, fresh off the plane, drop and do, so to speak. My mouth dropped open, I breathlessly pointed, the vision so disturbing to my neatly ordered, Tidy American life.
My SO calmly explained that this behavior is indeed normal in "those parts of the world." The thought rattled around in my head, bouncing, unable to be filed away. This was years ago, and I still remember it clearly, still remember my horror, still can feel the shift of the world and the consequent dizziness as I first considered that other people, uh, performed body functions differently than we did.
Fast forward to Dubai, October 2004. Landing at the airport at 1AM, we are disoriented, exhausted, assaulted by the brightness of the airport. Men in ghotras and women in abayas seemingly drift along the aisleways, their unholy feet invisible. Military uniforms pace back and forth, lending a heavy air of looming imprisonment to the immigration area. I sneak off to the restroom to wash the sweat from my face, and act that automatically identifies me as a Tidy American.
All the stalls except the one on the end are in use. So I head down to the one on the end, and recoil in horror that it is merely a hole in the floor. My mind spins. What? How? Why? As one does, I tried to fit into some schema that made sense. I could not. A hole in the floor! My God! A hole in the floor!!
Welcome to the other side of the world, girl.
Back in my Tidy American life, I refuse to use gas station restrooms. Consistently too dirty. And in the pre-gas-station-as-central-shopping-stop world, the dirty restrooms had the added creepiness of always being next to the garage, where several beer-bellied men half covered in grease resided, surely peering through a hole and watching you do things that people should not watch you do. Nope. Won't go there. Much prefer to visit a McDonald's (note: not a Burger King, never). Always cleaner, and in the best ones, you can see yourself in the reflection off the toilet bowl. Yes, it gives me great pleasure to see my water-distorted face in the brilliant bowl of Mickey D's, the Tidy American that I am.
However, I must say with some pride that I am a hearty woman. Camping does not scare me. Nor do long road trips. Though I do not visit dirty bathrooms, I have absolutely no problem with taking a leak in the great outdoors (several truck drivers in Texas will attest to that). Squeamish, I am not. Not, at least, until I saw that hole in the ground that the other half of the world had the audacity to call a toilet.
I stumbled backward, nearly falling, pointing down at the hole. There's a hole there! Where's the toilet? I looked around the bathroom, wide-eyed, trying to keep my wits and look like a world traveler but knowing at that moment that there was no fooling anyone. My eyes met another woman's, an Arab, who briefly glanced at me, then lowered her eyes to the floor, as they are prone to doing. Are they all like that??? Finally, another woman exited one of the stalls, and I slipped in behind her. Thank God. I sat, rejoicing in the coolness of the porcelein on my Big American Ass, collecting my thoughts. This international travel thing is more stressful than it should be, that's for sure. Now, what is that hose for? OMG. Where is the toilet paper????
One of the issues that first emerged working in Iraq was related to toilets. Many TCNs are employed on the bases, and they, as you would expect, are not used to using the Western toilets that ship with a Tidy American workforce. I can imagine now, looking back, that they greeted our Western toilets with the same type of horror that I greeted the Asian toilets (hereafter referred to as the Death Hole...will explain later). Iraq is an adjustment for us all.
We got complaints that the toilets were not being cleaned adequately. Upon further investigation, we discovered that some of the TCNs would stand on the toilet, crouched down, the way they were used to using the Death Hole. Needless to say, some excrement was frequently deposited on the toilet seat, usually in a neat little steaming pile, thus rendering the entire facility useless to the Tidy Americans. Was a mystery at first: the neat, steaming piles seemed to be some sort of political protest of unknown origin, causing considerable consternation to both Ops and Security. But we finally figured out what was happening after much hand-wringing, several emergency meetings (with the requisite full-color PowerPoint presentations), and a fair amount of culturally-sensitive brainstorming. We are, after all, pretty good at our jobs...
Simultaneously, we were confronted with yet another toilet issue. No one had apparently considered that the rest of the world doesn't use toilet paper (for those fellow Tidy Americans who are shocked by this, see reference above to the hose...). Don't see the problem with this? Neither did the entire US military. That is, until we had backed up every sewage system in the country (and it didn't take long). Iraqi sewage systems were never engineered with TP in mind. Nope. The pipes are too small. The treatment facilities (what is left of them) are undersized. So, after we had plugged them all up and roto-rootered them for the thousandth time, we had hard buildings that had to be posted as TP Free Zones.
But since we are creatures of habit, we cannot expect the Tidy Americans to suddenly adopt ritualistic ablution. So, one of the odd things that you will see in our world is a separate bin for used TP next to the Baghdad toilets. Yup. Use it, don't flush it. Nice on a hot day, which, BTW, is pretty much every day. But not to worry!!! We Americans have hired TCNs to dump our bins of used TP in the TP Free Zones, so we never have to dirty our Tidy American hands with it. Whew.
Flashback to Dubai, January 2004. David and I had just landed from our first trip out of Baghdad since our arrival. Of course, we head to the bathroom in the terminal. As I enter the small, two stall women's restroom, I am confronted by six women in large patent leather boots, wool sweaters that drop past their knees, flower-print skirts, and wildly clashing scarves. They are definitely Not From Here. One lady, probably 85, has removed her patent leather boots, and has a leg hiked up into the sink, and is apparently bathing. In front of each stall door is a woman with a death grip on the top of the door, holding it securely closed. One woman smiles at me. She has no teeth. I smile back. I have a full set. She seems confused.
I make a vain attempt at conversation. Many in the UAE speak English. But this group speaks none, not a lick. I wildly swing my hands, trying to pantomime "globe" to them, trying to figure out where the hell they are from, since it is now apparent to me that they have never been to a public restroom before. They do not understand how to flush the toilet, nor close and latch the stall doors. Both women inside the stalls are apparently trapped inside, and there is much animated discussion from the lady standing outside the stall door, who herself does not understand how to unlatch the door. The ladies inside have managed to pretty much spray down everything inside the stalls, including themselves. I have no idea whether they managed to actually pee, but everything in sight was wet. They finally emerge, one second before I pee my pants, shoeless, damp and smiling. I smile back. The old lady at the sink struggles to turn off the water, with her foot still in the basin. She is extremely flexible. I smile at her. She nods her head and smiles her toothless grin. I envy her flexibility.
Fast forward to Dubai, September 2005. Returning from Istanbul, it was 1AM, I was dead tired, and about ten 747's had just landed. Immigration was crazy, filled with thousands of hot and smelly people in various types of native garb. I ran to the bathroom, big mistake. The line was long, by the time I got to the stall I was rocking from foot to foot squeezing as hard as my Kegel exercises had trained me to. So imagine my horror as the stall I enter has no toilet.....my choice is pee my pants or use the Death Hole. I stare at it, afraid. It is dark, a hole to nowhere, to certain death or, at the very least, uncomfortable, feces-stained dismemberment. It is connected to a flush mechanism that is strong enough to suck your body down (and the hole is big enough to easily lose a leg in). Now, a year ago, I would recoil and stand in stunned silence and go ahead and wet my pants on the spot. But I like to think that I have learned something this year, certainly with regard to cultural awareness. I pause, then lock the door behind me. I am facing the Death Hole. And there is no call button on the wall in case I need help.
I slip my pants down (this isn't so bad, it's just like camping....) and try to center myself over the hole (OK, this is harder, camping doesn't require one to aim). But this is more complex: you cannot merely stand over the hole if you have pants on (ding! The advantage of an abaya is now clear to me!), you must bend forward, pointing your Big American Ass backward over the hole. I was deeply thankful, believe me, that there was no one there with a camera. That I know of.
Of course, if the, uh, stream is not forcefully ejected, it just dribbles down your leg, so you have to center and push while slightly squatting (really more trouble than you think). As I just get myself centered, I feel a sharp pain in my knee. Fuck. The one with no ACL, the one that has a tendency to lock, slide sideways, and throw me to the floor at the most inopportune moments (the last time was during a job interview...I didn't get the job). Yes, that one. It is true what they say. You do see your life flash before you. But I can't move, or I will pee on my pants, and I still have to wait outside in a crowded line in immigration for, oh, probably an hour. I would prefer to be not smelling like urine, another trait that automatically identifies me as a Tidy American.
I am trapped, waiting for the moment when my knee slides sideways and I fall into the Death Hole, sucked into oblivion, quite possibly to Texas. I take a deep breath, bracing myself. My knee gives slightly, but mercifully does not buckle. I look down, perilously, into the Death Hole, and notice that I am not peeing into it, but have missed and am now peeing on the floor, splashing onto my tennis shoes. From the looks of the floor, I am not the first. Someone has graciously parked a urine-soaked mop, circa 1981, next to the Death Hole. I'm not touching it...
OK, so do you drop TP into the Death Hole (an uncomfortable confusion overcomes me, similar to the directionally-related panic I still feel when faced with a bidet)? I froze, TP in hand, butt in air, not sure what the cultural rules were. But I felt my knee starting to slide, and dropped it. Good Lord. It is 1AM, I am exhausted, I damn near wet my pants in public, and I no longer have the capacity to process any more cultural sensitivity. I flushed twice. The first time, the TP just sat there, taunting me with my Tidy American-ness.
The next day, we were informed of yet another toilet issue on camp. Seems like some Tidy American has had enough of the Death Holes, and has modified them slightly....
Most Americans have no conception that there are other versions of the venerable crapper in existence. I first pondered this some years ago, while sitting at a Denny's, where all my significant revelations occurred at the time. Across the very busy six lane street was a drainage ditch, adjacent to a gas station. As I sat vacantly staring out the window, I saw an Asian man pull down his pants, and take a crap right there in the ditch.
Now, in the part of the world that I am from, we have a fair amount of Asians. They have arrived for decades, from Viet Nam, Japan, Korea, China. At one point, they arrived by the boatload, refugees of yet another political misadventure in their homeland. So we are used to Asians, they are the backdrop of our northwestern lives. Yet I had never seen one, fresh off the plane, drop and do, so to speak. My mouth dropped open, I breathlessly pointed, the vision so disturbing to my neatly ordered, Tidy American life.
My SO calmly explained that this behavior is indeed normal in "those parts of the world." The thought rattled around in my head, bouncing, unable to be filed away. This was years ago, and I still remember it clearly, still remember my horror, still can feel the shift of the world and the consequent dizziness as I first considered that other people, uh, performed body functions differently than we did.
Fast forward to Dubai, October 2004. Landing at the airport at 1AM, we are disoriented, exhausted, assaulted by the brightness of the airport. Men in ghotras and women in abayas seemingly drift along the aisleways, their unholy feet invisible. Military uniforms pace back and forth, lending a heavy air of looming imprisonment to the immigration area. I sneak off to the restroom to wash the sweat from my face, and act that automatically identifies me as a Tidy American.
All the stalls except the one on the end are in use. So I head down to the one on the end, and recoil in horror that it is merely a hole in the floor. My mind spins. What? How? Why? As one does, I tried to fit into some schema that made sense. I could not. A hole in the floor! My God! A hole in the floor!!
Welcome to the other side of the world, girl.
Back in my Tidy American life, I refuse to use gas station restrooms. Consistently too dirty. And in the pre-gas-station-as-central-shopping-stop world, the dirty restrooms had the added creepiness of always being next to the garage, where several beer-bellied men half covered in grease resided, surely peering through a hole and watching you do things that people should not watch you do. Nope. Won't go there. Much prefer to visit a McDonald's (note: not a Burger King, never). Always cleaner, and in the best ones, you can see yourself in the reflection off the toilet bowl. Yes, it gives me great pleasure to see my water-distorted face in the brilliant bowl of Mickey D's, the Tidy American that I am.
However, I must say with some pride that I am a hearty woman. Camping does not scare me. Nor do long road trips. Though I do not visit dirty bathrooms, I have absolutely no problem with taking a leak in the great outdoors (several truck drivers in Texas will attest to that). Squeamish, I am not. Not, at least, until I saw that hole in the ground that the other half of the world had the audacity to call a toilet.
I stumbled backward, nearly falling, pointing down at the hole. There's a hole there! Where's the toilet? I looked around the bathroom, wide-eyed, trying to keep my wits and look like a world traveler but knowing at that moment that there was no fooling anyone. My eyes met another woman's, an Arab, who briefly glanced at me, then lowered her eyes to the floor, as they are prone to doing. Are they all like that??? Finally, another woman exited one of the stalls, and I slipped in behind her. Thank God. I sat, rejoicing in the coolness of the porcelein on my Big American Ass, collecting my thoughts. This international travel thing is more stressful than it should be, that's for sure. Now, what is that hose for? OMG. Where is the toilet paper????
One of the issues that first emerged working in Iraq was related to toilets. Many TCNs are employed on the bases, and they, as you would expect, are not used to using the Western toilets that ship with a Tidy American workforce. I can imagine now, looking back, that they greeted our Western toilets with the same type of horror that I greeted the Asian toilets (hereafter referred to as the Death Hole...will explain later). Iraq is an adjustment for us all.
We got complaints that the toilets were not being cleaned adequately. Upon further investigation, we discovered that some of the TCNs would stand on the toilet, crouched down, the way they were used to using the Death Hole. Needless to say, some excrement was frequently deposited on the toilet seat, usually in a neat little steaming pile, thus rendering the entire facility useless to the Tidy Americans. Was a mystery at first: the neat, steaming piles seemed to be some sort of political protest of unknown origin, causing considerable consternation to both Ops and Security. But we finally figured out what was happening after much hand-wringing, several emergency meetings (with the requisite full-color PowerPoint presentations), and a fair amount of culturally-sensitive brainstorming. We are, after all, pretty good at our jobs...
Simultaneously, we were confronted with yet another toilet issue. No one had apparently considered that the rest of the world doesn't use toilet paper (for those fellow Tidy Americans who are shocked by this, see reference above to the hose...). Don't see the problem with this? Neither did the entire US military. That is, until we had backed up every sewage system in the country (and it didn't take long). Iraqi sewage systems were never engineered with TP in mind. Nope. The pipes are too small. The treatment facilities (what is left of them) are undersized. So, after we had plugged them all up and roto-rootered them for the thousandth time, we had hard buildings that had to be posted as TP Free Zones.
But since we are creatures of habit, we cannot expect the Tidy Americans to suddenly adopt ritualistic ablution. So, one of the odd things that you will see in our world is a separate bin for used TP next to the Baghdad toilets. Yup. Use it, don't flush it. Nice on a hot day, which, BTW, is pretty much every day. But not to worry!!! We Americans have hired TCNs to dump our bins of used TP in the TP Free Zones, so we never have to dirty our Tidy American hands with it. Whew.
Flashback to Dubai, January 2004. David and I had just landed from our first trip out of Baghdad since our arrival. Of course, we head to the bathroom in the terminal. As I enter the small, two stall women's restroom, I am confronted by six women in large patent leather boots, wool sweaters that drop past their knees, flower-print skirts, and wildly clashing scarves. They are definitely Not From Here. One lady, probably 85, has removed her patent leather boots, and has a leg hiked up into the sink, and is apparently bathing. In front of each stall door is a woman with a death grip on the top of the door, holding it securely closed. One woman smiles at me. She has no teeth. I smile back. I have a full set. She seems confused.
I make a vain attempt at conversation. Many in the UAE speak English. But this group speaks none, not a lick. I wildly swing my hands, trying to pantomime "globe" to them, trying to figure out where the hell they are from, since it is now apparent to me that they have never been to a public restroom before. They do not understand how to flush the toilet, nor close and latch the stall doors. Both women inside the stalls are apparently trapped inside, and there is much animated discussion from the lady standing outside the stall door, who herself does not understand how to unlatch the door. The ladies inside have managed to pretty much spray down everything inside the stalls, including themselves. I have no idea whether they managed to actually pee, but everything in sight was wet. They finally emerge, one second before I pee my pants, shoeless, damp and smiling. I smile back. The old lady at the sink struggles to turn off the water, with her foot still in the basin. She is extremely flexible. I smile at her. She nods her head and smiles her toothless grin. I envy her flexibility.
Fast forward to Dubai, September 2005. Returning from Istanbul, it was 1AM, I was dead tired, and about ten 747's had just landed. Immigration was crazy, filled with thousands of hot and smelly people in various types of native garb. I ran to the bathroom, big mistake. The line was long, by the time I got to the stall I was rocking from foot to foot squeezing as hard as my Kegel exercises had trained me to. So imagine my horror as the stall I enter has no toilet.....my choice is pee my pants or use the Death Hole. I stare at it, afraid. It is dark, a hole to nowhere, to certain death or, at the very least, uncomfortable, feces-stained dismemberment. It is connected to a flush mechanism that is strong enough to suck your body down (and the hole is big enough to easily lose a leg in). Now, a year ago, I would recoil and stand in stunned silence and go ahead and wet my pants on the spot. But I like to think that I have learned something this year, certainly with regard to cultural awareness. I pause, then lock the door behind me. I am facing the Death Hole. And there is no call button on the wall in case I need help.
I slip my pants down (this isn't so bad, it's just like camping....) and try to center myself over the hole (OK, this is harder, camping doesn't require one to aim). But this is more complex: you cannot merely stand over the hole if you have pants on (ding! The advantage of an abaya is now clear to me!), you must bend forward, pointing your Big American Ass backward over the hole. I was deeply thankful, believe me, that there was no one there with a camera. That I know of.
Of course, if the, uh, stream is not forcefully ejected, it just dribbles down your leg, so you have to center and push while slightly squatting (really more trouble than you think). As I just get myself centered, I feel a sharp pain in my knee. Fuck. The one with no ACL, the one that has a tendency to lock, slide sideways, and throw me to the floor at the most inopportune moments (the last time was during a job interview...I didn't get the job). Yes, that one. It is true what they say. You do see your life flash before you. But I can't move, or I will pee on my pants, and I still have to wait outside in a crowded line in immigration for, oh, probably an hour. I would prefer to be not smelling like urine, another trait that automatically identifies me as a Tidy American.
I am trapped, waiting for the moment when my knee slides sideways and I fall into the Death Hole, sucked into oblivion, quite possibly to Texas. I take a deep breath, bracing myself. My knee gives slightly, but mercifully does not buckle. I look down, perilously, into the Death Hole, and notice that I am not peeing into it, but have missed and am now peeing on the floor, splashing onto my tennis shoes. From the looks of the floor, I am not the first. Someone has graciously parked a urine-soaked mop, circa 1981, next to the Death Hole. I'm not touching it...
OK, so do you drop TP into the Death Hole (an uncomfortable confusion overcomes me, similar to the directionally-related panic I still feel when faced with a bidet)? I froze, TP in hand, butt in air, not sure what the cultural rules were. But I felt my knee starting to slide, and dropped it. Good Lord. It is 1AM, I am exhausted, I damn near wet my pants in public, and I no longer have the capacity to process any more cultural sensitivity. I flushed twice. The first time, the TP just sat there, taunting me with my Tidy American-ness.
The next day, we were informed of yet another toilet issue on camp. Seems like some Tidy American has had enough of the Death Holes, and has modified them slightly....
posted by akantha at 2:05 PM
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