Evil Bathroom

Disclaimer: This post contains references to the private goings-on in bathrooms. If you’re at all shy about it (because I’m not anymore) beware; it’s not graphic though.

I’ve been fighting with the bathroom of my new house since the very first day I got here. The first night, I go to brush my teeth, and can’t get the damn water to turn off! It felt like eternity, but was probably only a minute, that I stood there, panicked that I would never figure out how to turn the water off! What if it didn’t turn off?? Do I walk away, because they will know it was me! Do I ask for help? You know those moments, when you are so distressed by the situation time seems to slow down as if to reinforce the torturous awkwardness you are already experiencing.

Well, I finally figured out how to turn the water off after twisting the knob back and forth for a minute. The thing about living with host families is when you have a problem, you hesitate to ask for help … at least I do. That night I stood at the sink, panicking, thinking, “How do I say in Spanish ‘I need help turning off the sink.’” You think of all the various combinations you could say that one phrase, knowing very well that there’s some obscure cultural saying that you don’t know, and when you ask the family in your own special “gringo Spanish,” they won’t understand and look at you as if you have three heads. So, you just don’t ask, and you panic through the situation, all the while cursing the forces that be for putting you there.

ANYWAYS, up until this house, I have had to use a bucket to flush the toilet. You go, and fill up a bucket with three gallons of water, and take it in with you. Then, instead of using the flusher (which are still there!), you pour in the bucket of water.

1) I think the flushers remain on the toilets to tease ignorant gringos, who just might happen to forget where they are, and try to flush normally. Having used these toilets for 3 months now, I still forget the bucket, and I still try to use the flusher. You push down the flusher, and nothing happens, and you brain is confused for .5 seconds, and then you remember you’re in Honduras, and you just kind of go, “Oh … yeah.”

2) Why we ever progressed beyond the bucket flush is beyond me. It’s so efficient (maybe not in water usage)! I know that much of my audience has indeed clogged a toilet before in their lives, and I ensure you that bucket flushes eliminate such problems! With the bucket flush, if you don’t have enough water you just go and refill the bucket! You don’t have to wait for the toilet to stop running, hoping that it will in time for you to try another flush before you have to abandon your shame, and pretend like it worked.

So, this toilet has a weak flush by all standards, and is conveniently located on the opposite side of the house from the pila, where Hondurans hold all their water. So, in order to get a more efficient flush I would have to abandon the toilet, walk across the house, ask for a bucket, walk back through the house with said bucket, and flush the toilet! Yeah, no.

ALSO, the bathroom has CONVIENENTLY been out of toilet paper for about 4 days!! In all my awkward, infinite wisdom, I just avoided going to the bathroom in my house. It got to the point I considered stealing toilet paper from my office to serve as a private stash in my house.

Now, you ask, “Hannah, why wouldn’t you just ask for toilet paper?”

Well it isn’t that easy! See, the housing situation here is different, so I have to pay rent out of my own pocket, and I don’t know if that includes soap, toilet paper, etc. (this was a problem before!) Therefore, what if I was to ask for toilet paper, and my host mom said, “You’re supposed to supply your own! And stop using my soap!” Now, I know she wouldn’t do that, but I have a lot of time to think about the worst-possible-scenario. I’m so pathetic.

But, HALLELUJAH there was toilet paper this morning!

So, I first fought with the sink, then I fought with the toilet, and then I had a fight with the shower this morning.

Now, luckily I didn’t go to the gym this morning (yes, there’s a gym in my town, and I have wireless internet in my office. I’m in Posh Corps!), so I wasn’t sweating when I got into the shower. Now, turn on the water, and a slow, steady dribble comes out. Greeeaaat. Well, I decide to abandon washing my face for the sink, which has a steadier water flow. Unfortunately, I’m a bit too big to fit in the sink to wash the rest of my body, so I lather up my shower puff, and starting soaping up. Now, what I was thinking in this moment, I still can’t figure out. When there is a steady dribble of water in Honduras you can pretty much count on there being no water by the time you need it. That’s just how it works here.

So, left the water on, because there wasn’t too much coming out that I would drain their tank, so kept soaping up, and turns out slowly watching the water STOP. Yes, by the time I had soap covering my body, the water decided to turn off. Yup, just inexplicably no running water at this moment.

Turn the knob left. Turn the knob right. Jiggle, jiggle. Turn the knob farther to the left. Farther to the right. Nothing.

DAMMIT! Well I stood there, staring at the shower, praying that enough water would come out to allow me to get at least the majority of soap off. Nope, didn’t come. So I just toweled off the soap and left. Just abandoned all hope of running water. What was I going to do, wrap the towel around my soapy body, walk into the kitchen and ask the women there for a bucket to continue washing myself? Maybe some of you would have done that, but I am not one of those people. Spare the shame of my host family knowing the EXTENT of my awkwardness, only to put it on the internet, where the rest of the world can read it!

So I’m not itchy yet, which makes me pretty happy, because that was my number one concern this morning. Also, the mango/lime scent that is my soap is a little stronger, so I have a nice natural perfume today.

To add insult to injury, I was walking out of the house today to go to work, and saw under the counter in the restaurant a 24-pack of toilet paper. WTF?!?

Bathroom 3 – Hannah 0

I thought people would appreciate this little mini-war with the bathroom. I sure don’t, but at least it provides some humor for somebody’s day.