An Essay on One of the Essentials of Life

February 24, 2006
Toilets

For many people the following subject is probably “not in good taste,” or very unusual, or maybe even rude. But it is a fact of life that every person on earth – no, it is even more than that! Every LIVE thing on earth produces waste that must be dealt with. For animals it is quite simple – they just go wherever they happen to be and too bad if the end result is in the way. People, however, must deal with this part of life quite differently. Sanitation is different in different parts of the world, yet some things just remain the same. This is an article on toilets.

I grew up in Colorado, in a modern American home, a simple home, but with all the basic conveniences, including city water and city sanitation. After using the toilet, we simply pushed a little silver handle and everything disappeared in a swirling rush of water. As a child I had no idea what happened to it all – it just disappeared down some pipes into oblivion. My grandparents lived on a small ranch out east of town and they had a different system. Oh, the toilet itself was basically the same, and it was used the same way, but I had an awareness that when that water disappeared it went down into a huge hole in the ground somewhere, hopefully NOT under the house. Something called a cesspool, or a septic system, or something. I was pretty vague on the whole idea.

We often went camping up in the mountains and there was a third toilet system at the campgrounds. For several reasons this third system was often scary to me. First and most importantly, these toilets were just a hole in the ground and I was always slightly afraid I might drop something down there or, horrible thought, actually fall in myself. Second, they stank.

Just before snuggling up in my sleeping bag for the night, I’d have to make the trek with my mother and sisters through the campground to the little toilet building – in the dark! Sometimes we’d have a flash light, sometimes not. The trip there was fraught with peril all by itself – bears, mountain lions, robbers or other bad guys could be hiding there in the dark behind a tree, just waiting for a little girl to walk by, so all of my senses were on high alert to every sound, every imagined movement in the shadows. Often you could tell where the toilet was located just from the smell carried on the breeze. We’d walk up to that little building, black against the bright night sky, and I’d hope we were actually on the correct side – the side with the little drawing of a lady in a dress on the door. I sure didn’t want to make a mistake and end up in the side with the drawing of the man on the door! After my mother helped my younger sisters, I’d take a deep breath and hold it, open the door and go in by myself, careful to latch the door with the hook (not always easy to do in the semi-darkness). I’d hurry as fast as I could so I wouldn’t have to breathe if at all possible. The toilet was metal and once the lid was lifted it was just a long drop into a hole in the ground, full of unmentionable ‘stuff.’ And embarrassing to me every time was that if someone was on the other side, I could actually hear what that male person was doing – therefore, I knew that whoever he might be, he could also hear me! I could never get out of there fast enough. Trips to the campground toilet were the only part of camping that I did not like.

Many years later I moved to Alaska, married and ended up living in the bush outside of Fairbanks. Of course there was no city water and sanitation out there, so it was outhouse time again. The little “cabin” we rented was located in a blueberry bog, so the outhouse hole was not very deep and it was mostly full of brackish water. In the summer and early fall the ground around it was so full of water that the outhouse actually moved when a person walked by. When winter arrived and the ground began to freeze, the outhouse shifted and moved along with the freezing ground and water. By the time everything was totally frozen, the outhouse building was sitting on a mound of frozen ground and ice, tipped slightly backwards. At forty degrees below zero outside and my being several months pregnant, it was much easier to have a “honey bucket” in the house than to make the trek outside. Once we reached the outhouse through the snow and cold, if the door was closed we had to pull it open at an angle sufficiently steep to make it a chore. It was easier just to leave the door open all the time. Once inside, after getting ready, we had to back up and then just kind of fall backward to sit on the Styrofoam seat, looking up at the sky. Fortunately there were no other cabins nearby so an open door was no problem. The only hard part was getting back up on our standing feet again. However, it was either get up at an awkward angle or have a frozen rear end. When spring arrived again and the ground thawed, the outhouse once again resumed its correct position and that part of life returned to “normal.”

After my experiences camping and living in Alaska I figured I’d never be surprised by toilet facilities again. But I was wrong. Ten years ago we made our first trip to Ukraine and I discovered that there are many types of toilet facilities that I had not considered before. Oh, the basics are the same for the most part – there is either a hole of some sort in the ground or there is a “modern convenience” of some sort, but there are wide differences in each of those two categories. The holes in the ground have sometimes consisted of crumbling cement or rotting boards that I pray will hold me up, located in little cement or wooden outhouses out behind service stations, country bus stops or village homes. Some of the unusual-to-me “regular” toilets that I have seen here include the “shelf toilet,” the “climb-up toilet” and the “footpad toilet.”

I’ve heard from other people that the footpad toilet is actually quite common in other parts of the world, but I’ve only seen it here and in a couple other countries. They are usually located in stalls, but only about a quarter of the time is there a door on the stall – usually it’s just a “semi-private stall.” If a person is easily embarrassed, she can ask someone to stand at the front, facing away, to give her a modicum of privacy. But I’ve noticed that most people just keep their eyes down and don’t pay any attention to who is where or doing what. It takes a little practice to learn how to use this kind of toilet comfortably.

I’ve seen climb-up toilets in several public places. They are a mix between a regular toilet and a footpad toilet. I saw one as it was being built and it consisted of a regular toilet with a platform built around the top of it. A couple of steps were added in the front so you could climb up and then use it like a footpad toilet. On the other hand, a platform is not always needed. I have been to several public toilets which have a regular toilet and I noticed that often there are dirty footprints on the seats. I wondered why in the world someone would step up on the toilet seat, so I asked a friend, “why are there dirty footprints on the toilet seat?” She responded that you are supposed to stand on the toilet seat – not sit on it! Oh. Ok then! I asked, “How do you do that when you are wearing 4 inch spike heels?” Most of the women we see on the street wear heels of some sort. She smiled and responded that girls are taught to keep their balance up there from a very young age. Oh! Ok then! Oh my. Hmmmmmm. I just can’t imagine standing on the toilet seat at McDonald’s or the local service station in the States. I’m very thankful for those paper liner things.

The shelf toilet is most often seen in private homes and apartments. I had one American tell me that when she was looking for a flat to live in, she insisted that she would not rent one that had a shelf toilet – and she finally found a place that had a normal-to-an-American toilet. We call it a shelf toilet because instead of a funnel shaped bowl filled with water, there is a dry shelf that extends from the back of the toilet bowl to a hole just before the front. When flushed the water comes out of the tank at the back and then washes everything off the shelf and down into the hole. I’m not sure why they are made this way, I can’t think of any good reason, but I’m sure there must be one in the inventor’s mind. To say the least – they are unusual to Americans.

I’ve also had to learn how to flush toilets as I’ve traveled. Some have the familiar little silver handle on the side of the tank. Others have a knob on top of the tank lid that must be lifted (that’s what ours has in our flat). And many of the newer ones have a button that must be pushed down in the top of the tank lid. Often the cover of that button is missing, so you must push what looks like a hard plastic straw down until you hear the sound of the flush. There have been times when it has taken me as long to figure out how to flush the toilet as it was to just to use it.

What have I learned from all of this? Well, I’ve learned that often it is much safer to use the bushes rather than an outhouse hole in the ground while traveling across the countryside. I’ve learned that campground outhouses are not all that bad in reality. And I’ve learned that I really am thankful for American style toilets. I took such a basic necessity for granted most of my life – but not any more!