july 23: more information than you wanted to know, vol. 1

Above picture: I apologize ahead of time

I will personally guide you through this picture. As you can see, that is a toilet. But it isn't any 'ol toilet, it's my toilet. I was warned by plenty of people before I got here that I would be huddled over it frequently, feeling very sick.

So far I haven't gotten sick once. Boo-yah!

Before you tell me to "knock on wood", I just want you to know that I have said this fact outloud many a time. So save your "knock on wood" warnings for someone else.

~

Now that you have sufficiently studied the place where I do my bowel thing, let's get to the information you probably don't care to hear.

I am sure that you noticed the bucket-and-scoop contraption to the left of the toilet when you were doing your deep study of the picture. Well, that my friends is my "toilet paper". It is what I call the "poor man's bidet".

In India, they don't have bidets or, for the most part, toilet paper. They use the street method, the hole-in-the-floor method, the toilet with a bucket-and-scoop-of-water method, or, the best, the toilet-and-spray-nozzle method. The toilet-and-spray-nozzle is by far the best post-BM cleaning method I have ever tried. And I think I have tried them all.

I really wish I had the spray nozzle system for my personal toilet. As you can see, I only have the bucket-and-a-scoop-of-water system.

~

To tell you the truth, using the scoop is kind of tricky. First of all, the scoop is so large that it is hard to work with. Second of all, once you have water in the scoop it is very hard to project it out in a way that takes care of the job. I could easily go into more detail, but I think I will leave it at that.

Lesson of the day: Make sure you accurately project the water out of the scoop, else you will have some very wet pants.