Chamberpot

I was never going to share this story, but Suzy and Amy convinced me. It's good for a laugh, although at my expense!

Our bathrooms are located in the middle of the compound. If you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it's kind of a drag to have to walk outside to the toilets. If it's raining, it's especially a bummer. Plus, you have to look out for frogs and snakes. Not so much fun when you are half asleep. As a solution to this issue, we have susu (Swahili word for pee) buckets in our room. If you have to pee, you can go in the bucket and then empty it in the toilet in the morning. For those of you who haven't been here, it may be hard to understand why a person would pee in a bucket instead of walking outside to the bathroom. I resisted for several months, but then gave in and started using the bucket. Suzy had special covers/seats made for our susu buckets which slide over the top of the buckets. They arrived on the truck and we refer to them as our chamberpots.

Each morning, I empty the bucket. I leave it on my porch during the day with water and soap inside. At night before I go to bed, I put the bucket back in my room. One night a few weeks ago, I had a little accident. I had a cold and had taken medicine that made me drowsy. Around 4:00am I stumbled out of bed to use the susu bucket. I sat down, went and headed back to my bed. As I stepped away, I noticed water on my floor. I thought, "Huh... that's weird. Where did the water come from? It's not raining." Then it hit me, you idiot, your bucket is still outside. Yes, that's right, I peed on my floor. So, half asleep, I got water and a scrubbing broom and cleaned my floor. Not what you want to be doing at 4:00am while doped up on cold medicine.

You could say this was my lowest moment in Tonj. Until, I did the same thing a week later.