You Have Reached Level 99!

Perhaps this is a bit gruesome of a subject for some, but using pit latrines is a part of daily life here. (Well, it was for me until I got to my house at least. Now I have a western toilet.)

First of all, what is a pit latrine? I may have broached this subject in a previous blog post, but considering the lack of internet at the moment, I’m just going to go ahead and reexplain it. Have you ever been to state or national parks where they have permanent porta-potties? I know it’s an oxymoron, but it’s how I’ve always thought of them. It’s a cement hole in the ground with a toilet-like structure above it. Well, take away the toilet-like structure, make it just big enough to fit a person, and you’ve got a pit latrine. It’s a hole dug 50+ feet deep and rather wide with a concrete platform built on top and usually a concrete building with several stalls. There are holes in the concrete, but no toilet-like structure.

How do you use a pit latrine? Like nature intended you to. You squat. In a stall that is usually just hardly big enough to fit, well, you. Figuring out exactly where to put your legs in order to balance takes skill. Even more so, at least for us women, learning how to control your *ahem* stream *cough* is incredibly difficult. In fact, you could describe your affinity for using a pit latrine as a skill level, like in a video game.

And now you know how I got through language training.

You’ve already surpassed level one just by learning the anatomy of a pit latrine. You know how video games will give you the first level of your character during the demo? That’s what just happened for you.

In the early days of using a pit latrine, squatting is difficult. You don’t have the muscles built up yet to squat for very long, and it hurts if you have to stay in that position for very long. Your stream is very, very difficult to control, and most times you don’t make it in the hole. Of course you don’t tell anyone that, though.

By level 15 or so, you can squat for a sufficient length of time, and maybe you can even balance. The latrine walls are not pleasant to hold onto, so you have focused mostly on building your stance.

Level 30, you have figured out how to “drop dep charges” (source MONDAY) like a pro, though your stream is still pretty iffy. You now get most of it into the hole, but you can’t deny you still get some on your shoes…fairly often.

Level 50, this is the 50/50 point. 50% of the time, you get everything in the hole, but 50% of the time you’re still cleaning your shoe off before leaving. At this point in time, you can begin to master another skill, the night bucket. (It’s just a bucket you use in lieu of a latrine at night, but the hole tends to be even smaller than the pit latrine…. This is something I was not able to even begin learning in my time at language training.)

Level 75, you have nearly mastered the pit latrine. You have not had a doo doo outside the hole since level 30, and your stream is under control except in extreme situations, namely right after waking up and when you’ve had to hold it for hours on a taxi. Your night bucket skill is even coming along nicely. Given time, you will also master these extreme occurrences, and eventually you will reach Level 99!

So where did I get to during language training? I would say approximately Level 85 for the latrine at home, and maybe even Level 99 for the latrine at school (where the hole was significantly bigger)!