Flush

Some of the delay in posting about my travels is because I’ve got some kind of bug that is intent on kicking my butt.  My weekend has alternated the bed and the sofa, ANTM, Launch My Line and Bizarre Food.  Exciting, right?  The bigger part of the delay is that I’m finding it difficult to communicate how foreign things were.  The simplest terms; village, town, city, simply do not interpret the same way.

Even something as basic as toilet paper wasn’t all that basic.  The air lines favored the single-ply, see-through variety.  The grocery store in Tana sells rolls so small that they only make nine revolutions before they run out.  The prize winner was at our last stop; it appeared to have been hand cut and hand wound around the core and its texture resembled dimpled typing paper. I’m sure some of these could be duplicated in the states but it’s Charmin for me thank-you very much.

More interesting were the number of different methods of flushing that paper.  The airlines favored a button on the wall (followed by a flush so powerful it was frightening).  The toilets at the ‘compound’  had a large flat plate mounted on the wall a few feet over the bowl.  It pushed in at the top like a see-saw and then slowly returned to flat.  Not one time did I get it right first try; evidently it was developed by the water company.  On our trip south we visited five different hotels; there were buttons and knobs, pushers and pullers, and not one little handle on the front.  Even the one in Paris was unusual; similar to the one at the ‘compound’ but mounted to the lid.

Bro and SIL don’t really like the ‘compound’ because it isn’t a fair representation of the city they live in but for me it was an oasis of normal … even if the toilets flushed funny. Eventually I will get it organized (when my brain stops simmering in my skull) and hopefully I can share it the same way I saw it.

About the photo: This is a pill millipede; we called them roly poly bugs when I was a kid. He was one of my absolute favorite critters. I never caught one open (I really wanted to ‘feel’ him walk across my hand) as they snapped shut the moment they felt us on the forest path. He is a good bit bigger than a golf ball and heavier as well.