From Mahikeng to Mongolia, a hole in the ground is just that
I GREW up in a village in Mahikeng where the use of long drops – pit toilets for those who don’t speak South African – was part of everyday life.
When I started hiking a couple of years ago, I got introduced to long drops of a different kind – those that require some serious balancing skills as they’ve got no seats.
From snow-capped Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to freezing Mount Elbrus in Russia, I grew to perfect my skills while using squat toilets, because one slip and you risk landing on a heap of someone else’s excrement, or even falling inside if the hole is too big and you are petite.
Yes, other than balancing skills, one has got to be able to aim and when you factor in altitude sickness and knee injuries that render some people unable to squat properly, chances of missing the hole on the ground are as high as the mountain they are climbing.
Since I’m well versed with squat toilets and I’m without a gym membership this year, when my bosses presented me with an opportunity to work in the People’s Republic of China for a year I thought what better way to get a workout without having to pay for it.
Well, that’s what I thought until I travelled to a remote part of China for the Worker’s Day long weekend. A colleague and I took a budget “sho’t left” to a remote part of China to slide in the sand dunes and ride camels as an escape from the bustle of city life. Following the five-hour bus ride I felt an urge to answer the call of nature.
In broken and limited Mandarin, I asked to be shown where the ladies room was and one of the ladies at the facility we’d call home for the weekend pointed to an outside structure about 400m away from reception.
No big deal, I thought. I’m a village girl after all and for the past two months I’ve had to use squat toilets in Beijing.
I have become used to the fact that some people, no matter how long they’ve used the squat toilets, still do not have their aim on point.
I’ve also got used to the fact that in Beijing, toilet paper isn’t flushed down the drain but thrown in the bin because the drainage system is not designed to handle such – little things that makes one’s skin crawl.
But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for what I walked into at this pit latrine in rural Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China.
With my bladder about to burst from all the water I had downed, I made a dash for the structure resembling pit latrines in the North West, with other ladies following behind.
Nothing, I mean nothing, could ever have prepared me for what I walked into. Four holes on the ground, no cubicles around them – no sense of privacy. Now having to squat facing the entrance knowing that there were strangers about to walk in was a huge challenge.
But peeing on my pants wasn’t an option. I had to get on with it, so did three other fellow travellers. Side by side we squatted, each minding our own business. All we could do was exchange looks and laugh but hey, what an experience.
In Setswana we say go tsamaya ke go bona (to travel is to be exposed to things) and we really saw and experienced something different this past weekend.
Mooki is an assistant editor at Cape Times’s sister newspaper The Star