RE:[Paddlewise] Disposal of human waste

Hi Y'all,

Some of you might remember Jean Philippe Soule of CASKE 2000 fame.  He
written an entertaining story about how other cultures deal with disposing
of human waste.

Sorry, it's a bit long, but it's good reading. Here it is:
When Nature Calls in Foreign Lands

8/25/99 by Jean-Philippe Soule


Thailand is famous for its white sand beaches, plunging cliffs of limestone
surrounded by lush rainforests and warm turquoise water. The bay of Phang
Nga has quickly become a kayaker’s paradise. Your best friends invited you
to join them in their paddling trip around the bay. You’re on your longest
stretch from the resort of Krabi to the famous island of Koh Phi Phi. The
day breaks with the sun reflecting its orange beams of light in the water.
The only ripples are the ones from your paddle strokes. You think you’re in
paradise when you start feeling strange movements in your bowels. You shut
your mind to it but soon after stomach cramps alter your paddling. You
remember the delicious spicy food of the previous night and have no choice
but to jump in the water…

It isn’t difficult to imagine this scenario. Most travelers and adventurers
have experiences that can relate to this. People often ask me: "What do you
do when you need to go to the bathroom?" Or, " How do you keep your toilet
paper dry in your kayak?" Or even, "How much paper do you pack for a month
in the wilderness?"

I would think that famous explorers such as Livingston or large crews such
the one of Captain Cook must have dealt with a lot of "----", yet none of
the classic or modern travel writers have ever treated the subject. If it
isn’t from lack of public interest it must be due to a taboo which I am
about to break here. But I wonder if people who are curious enough to ask
are ready to accept the answers? Are people who never asked ready to
understand? Education and cultural habits are hard to let go of.

During one of my first travels I met a young British couple in Thailand.
They had spent a year touring India and recounted to me fantastic tales.
Somehow our discussion moved toward the subject of daily necessities.
Shocked and horrified, I listened to this charming woman saying: "Now I’m so
used to using my left hand that I don’t want to use toilet paper anymore.
You feel so much cleaner with water". Even though more than half of the
world population has never used any toilet paper, my upbringing and closed
mind forbade me from conceiving how she could be right.

My subsequent travels took me through various places around the world and
what I learned is that a taboo in one culture is a norm in another. A
delicacy in one country is considered inedible somewhere else. We all think
differently but we usually are strongly influenced by our education and
social habits. It is hard if not impossible to judge the good from the bad.
None of the cultures are right or wrong per say, they just are different,
still sometimes you wonder which is more absurd, our hang-ups or their
habits.

Education starts at an early age. In Nepal the Sherpa children are dressed
with pants with the crotch seam left unsewn. When kids stand up the pants
are naturally closed. When they squat down they automatically split open and
the young child doesn’t need any help. Of course Sherpa children spend most
of their time outside and house floors are made of packed earth which are
easier to clean than a Persian carpet. In modern countries toddlers benefit
from the latest technological research in the field of diapers. The most
recent products ensure a nice hermetic seal that lets the toddler stew in
its excretion for hours. Which is cleaner I wonder? (But at least we
westerners have gone a long way into hiding natural disasters as long as
possible!). Perhaps it is a reaction to experiences at an early age that we
develop a phobia to feces. It’s understandable that after sitting and
playing in it daily for years as babies while wrapped in a diaper, adults
have developed a hypersensitivity to the matter. This would explain the use
of scented three ply toilet paper and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a new
five ply with tropical fruit scent in the twenty first century.

As little puppies grow up, they are trained to be clean; people too are
trained to hold on until they reach a special place. Most languages describe
the place as a hygienic toilet, but some do not always appear clean to the
eyes of others. In small Indonesian fishing villages, a narrow dock over the
sea takes you to a small space surrounded by boards. When you look down,
crabs and fish are all waiting to be fed. On the side you notice some old
coconut shells. Although I have never tried the coconut shells, I can
imagine that it would be similar to using sandpaper.

In China you squat down in a communal room looking down at a tube from which
a strange snorting sound comes out. A closer examination reveals to you the
moving snout of a pig impatiently waiting at the other end. In African
villages the streets are cleaned by vultures who sometimes come too close to
your hind flesh before you even finish your business. If you take a taxi
through the poorest part of Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, you will be
blessed with the sight of dozens of butts squatting over the ditch by the
road.

In other places people use stones, sometimes leaves from various plants, but
most people still use water. Toilet Paper commonly referred to as TP is a
modern invention that is always evolving. You can choose from single, double
or triple ply with a full array of colors, patterns, and softness. Scents
varies from rose to violet. I’m not sure if such large selection is supposed
to make you feel better or if it is just to match your mood of the day, but
maybe it should be marketed to Latin America. There, TP is commonly used,
but the toilet plumbing can’t handle it so you are provided with a small
plastic garbage container in which you dump the used paper for the visual
and olfactory pleasure of your successor. Of course TP also needs to be
disposed of which you might need to remind your hotel host a few times. All
the above makes me think that after all maybe the British lady wasn’t
entirely wrong.

The most absurd thing I’ve seen on the subject was a few years ago in San
Francisco. I was jogging early on a winter morning when I saw an old lady
walking her little poodle that was dressed in a hand woven wool jacket.
After the dog defecated on the side walk the lady picked her dog up under
one arm and opened her handbag. I expected her like all good Americans to
pull out a ziploc bag to clean up. Instead she pulled out some tissue,
lifted the tail and very thoroughly wiped her dog. She repeated the
operation two more times, put the dog back on its feet and nonchalantly
threw the used tissues on the street before resuming her morning walk.
Shocked, I stood there staring and wondering if she made that dog the
cleanest or the dirtiest of San Francisco.

The modern toilets like all amenities are built upon complex specifications.
In the USA, thin disposable plastified paper seat covers were recently
replaced by rotating plastic wrapping operated by an electrical engine and a
conveniently positioned button. People don’t have to touch anything that has
ever been touched by another human before. In France, public pay -toilets
are self-cleaning. Make sure you quickly get out before you close the door a
second time or you might be disinfected and cleaned up yourself. After use
when you close the door, in addition to standard flushing, the full cabin is
washed with pressure jets. If you happen upon a strong smell of urine in
Paris subway, don’t worry it isn’t a leak from the modern toilets. The
homeless simply can’t afford to pay the fees.

Japanese public toilets show the technology at its best and their use is
free. The seats are heated in cold areas. Toilets come with a full console.
You have to read Japanese to make sense of all the possibilities or you
could have fun experimenting a little on your own. One of the most used
features is the sound track. On the push of a button, a flushing sound
conveniently covers the sound of your excretions. This feature is important,
without it people might know what your business it all about.

It seems like the more modern the country, the more self-conscious its
people are about the most natural thing.

Self-consciousness again is linked to education and social habits and it isn
’t easy to break. When you travel, sometimes things happen that will shake
the most unfazed person. On a solo trek into the wilderness of Irian Jaya, I
was more of a novelty to the small Papuans than they were to me. Dressed
with their boar tusks through their noses and their penis gourds they
followed every move I made. I ate and went to sleep under the gaze of
hundreds of eyes. After a couple of weeks I got used to it but once I was in
a village where nobody spoke a word of Indonesian. Half of the village was
following me so close they were giving me claustrophobia. When nature
called, I tried to communicate my desire to be left alone but nothing
worked. After trying to escape for an hour I resigned myself to squatting
behind a small bush with all the people surrounding me to see if excrement
from the white giant were similar to theirs. I remembered feeling
humiliated, but at least I wasn’t sick. Maybe it would have destroyed their
image of a strong bearded spirit.

Being sick is something most travelers worry about, for good reason, as most
of us get sick eventually. It varies from small diarrheas to dangerous
bloody or watery dysentery. In Katmandu I lost twenty pounds in two weeks.
Another time in Indonesia again, my self-consciousness was strongly exposed.
I was on a local bus crossing the long island of Flores driving through
roads in terrible shapes. The bus was hours late. I was sitting in the last
row, holding my stomach as best as I could. Cramps became unbearable and
when I felt like I couldn’t hold any longer, I discretely told my neighbor
to immediately stop the bus. His behavior wasn’t the one I was hoping for.
stop the bus". Before the driver could even touch the brake, the fifty heads
were turned back and staring at me. The bus stopped, the rear door opened,
and I wasn’t able to go farther than two steps out before abandoning decorum
and going right on the road. All people came out of the bus to urinate,
forming a half circle all around me as I was relieving myself. To me it was
another shameful experience, but to them it didn’t seem to be anything out
of the ordinary. I was learning to fight my hang-ups the hard way.

These experiences don’t always happen in front of perfect strangers. More
recently when my expedition partner Luke and I were paddling from the border
of Belize to Guatemala, I had to hastily throw myself in the water three
times. Because we were paddling through a storm on rough seas, I needed Luke
’s help to stabilize my kayak while I was holding it with one hand from the
water. Do you think I asked him for some toilet paper?

To better understand the sanitary conditions of a long expedition, one needs
to have a better understanding of multi-cultural differences. What you need
to pack depends on your needs and ability to adapt. You might want to trade
some TP for insect repellent. Sometimes when nature calls, you have to
expose some flesh to painful bites.

One day you might run out of paper or your TP might be wet. You might be
forced into trying something you would have never considered otherwise. You
might realize that you were wrong about one of the most natural things. You
may even come to the conclusion that the British lady was right. WATER IS
JUST MUCH CLEANER.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Check out his website at http://www.caske2000.org/caske.htm

Cheers,
Dave
Dave Williams
paddler_at_loxinfo.co.th
http://paddleasia.com
Phuket, Thailand





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