Going to the Bathroom

I'm sorry if this post offends some.

Eating is a universal need. Thus, certain activities that go on in a bathroom also become a universal need.

A typical American bathroom contains:
- a toilet
- toilet paper
- a flusher

I've used two bathrooms here that have contained all of those; one is the Al-Husn LDS Church building, the other is the American Embassy. Technically, only one of those is on Jordanian soil.

A typical Jordanian bathroom contains:
- some type of hole
- a hose
- a trash can

At first, you aren't quite sure what to do. It's embarrassing to have someone explain it to you, especially when they've never seen an American bathroom.

The first time I walked into the University of Jordan's Language Center Women's Bathroom, I was absolutely confused. I had no idea what to do. It was literally a hole in the ground. What? I realized that it had to involve some sort of squatting, but - how!??!

There are two types of bathrooms here. Toilets, and holes.

In my house, we have both. I never use the hole, but I think it's mostly "the boy's bathroom", anyway.

Pretty much every time I use the bathroom in my house here, I think of the way I described it in a previous blog post, "it may not be my favorite room in the house" - and how that phrase continues to hold true.

The family bathroom here doesn't disgust me as much as it confuses me. I don't understand a toilet without a flush is possible. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do when a flush would come in handy. Usually I just take the hose, which is normally used in place of toilet paper, and try to "flush" things down...

Basically, if you urinate in the family bathroom, it just sits there. The "water" in the toilet isn't ever - well - water.

Then, there's this hole in the middle of the floor with a circular piece of metal over it, that were I to lift it, I KNOW I would see my bodily excretions flowing...somewhere...somehow...

During the family party last weekend, somebody had the brilliant idea to discard their cigarettes down the hole-in-the-ground "boy's" toilet. The result was everything got stuck, and crap (literally) overflowed into the main walkway of the house. Mama, Hibba, and Sanaa did most of the cleaning.

Several minutes after using a sucking-hose type thing to drain the stuff into what I assume must have been the gutter in the street, Mona was walking in bare feet on the same floor.

I keep repeating to myself in my mind, "These people aren't dead. You're not going to die, either."

It's part of the experience, I guess.