It is in fact a hard reality that the bathroom situations here in Peru are simply not as they are in the States…and for this I pen this entry knowing that the above statement cannot make someone not experiencing them appreciate it more or less if they have not walked a mile in the shoes of those who have. Before I go any further it should also be said that my bathroom situation within my home here is not a bad one and an effort to keep the previously mentioned bathroom clean is maintained..by no means is my home here a dirty one but it is in fact different…..I have lizards in my room, rats, and mice on occasion….cockroaches are and have always been one of Gods most disturbing creatures to me…..hence my fear of the night bathroom trip has emerged. My room is on the second floor at the very back of the second floor…my room is nice…in fact the nicest in the entire house…..my two “brothers” sleep in two rooms further towards the center stair case that leads down to the first floor…at the base of that staircase lies the bathroom. In the hotter months the brothers move their beds out into the common area as they are lacking windows to the outside world and it is hot as anyone in the states can imagine and then a bit hotter in the Summer. This leaves me essentially walking an obstacle course during any night time excursion to the rest room….proven so by me forgetting about one of the beds three weeks ago as I walked directly into the above and landed directly on top of my 50 year old brother human blanket style which was an awkward but amusing moment for all involved. However added to that is the fact that you hit that bottom step at your peril and reach for light switch right outside the bathroom and it is as if a national geographic special comes alive. Cockroaches are conducting a summer camp inside this bathroom each eve…spiders, various beetles etc etc. They scatter to a point but not to the point that one did not climb over my foot one eve as I was relieving myself which gave me 48 hours of chills and scarred me permanently from a post 11 PM bathroom jaunt. We as adults all have to make decisions and mine was to create a pee jar….yes cringe go ahead and do it……but the pee jar is an upscale one…in fact it is a Nalgene that was left behind by a previous volunteer…I pee in nothing but the best. Now I know for a fact that I have fellow mates amongst my volunteer jars that conduct the exact same practice but I stand alone today confessing to you my friends and family I have a pee jar. It has been rarely used but if I arise at 3 AM and need to make that long and dangerous trek and encounter the mother brain of cockroaches I choose my jar. I have only had to utilize it on three occasions and all has gone well-until last eve.
I arose at 1:47 AM as I had taken a run in the late afternoon and chugged a good bit of water accordingly after. I rose up to locate the jar only to realize after 30 seconds of searching that the jar was in fact outside having a soap water soak (I keep a clean jar). I had at that point crossed over the mental threshold of I have to go to the bathroom to I am going to the bathroom so I grabbed the first available container I could. That container was a plastic bag that was holding my recently purchased oranges from the local market. I began emptying my tank and about three quarters the way through the process I realized a leak was sprung. So I stand shorts around the ankles with a leaking bag of urine…..those on the titanic know nothing of panic as compared to a leaking pee bag in the middle of ones resting place. I sprung into absurd action and did the only thing I could which was to open my window and heave the bag out my window and into the animal pen that sits behind my house. All I could do was get my hand lamp out and put it on to view down on the birds devouring my bag o urine. The next morning there were no signs of the bag, it as if the birds had their own Thanksgiving of Urine. The sad fact is that on some day soon I will be eating these birds, and I know I will be providing nourishment to my body with my own waste. As is life in the Peace Corps or just repeating my days of youth when my grandmother would make us pee in old cool whip containers instead of walking the 15ft to the bathroom and telling us to “weedle in the bucket”…that however is a story for a different day.
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