My first day in Cape Town. I meet two other interns at the Observatory train station, and we head down to the city via the subway system. Three stops, and we’re in Cape Town’s city center. We go to an independent coffee shop, get cappuccinos, and board a hop-on/hop-off sightseeing bus. Everything is good.
Except that it isn’t. I need the washroom, but after I go, none of the taps are working. This, says the signage lined around along the sinks, is purposeful: South Africa is going through a country-wide water shortage. And so, water is being conserved.
After a long tiring day, I go home. As I’m relaxing in the common room, I feel that particular feeling in my bowels that tells me: it is time to go to the bathroom. I run up to our bathroom and begin to relieve myself. It is a big one – one that had been held through the six hour flight from Toronto to Amsterdam, the four hour layover at Schiphol Airport, and the eleven hour flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town. It had been held through the unpacking, through a night’s fitful first sleep in a new country, through a day’s worth of touring the town. It had been held through purchasing a charge adaptor, held through the using of $12/mb emergency data, held through the ducking from bird poop at the bird sanctuary. Held through a breakfast of scrambled eggs and croissant at the corner café, held through the lunch of personal smoked salmon pizza. Held through figuring out the subway system on our own on our way back to the house. And now, it had come out.
What then? Well, I flushed the toilet. But when I looked down, to my horror I saw the remnants of my colon still sitting there. A big, brown, solid log. So? I flushed again, holding down the handle and hoping – no, praying that it would slide down. I hardly dared peek. And I was right to be nervous: because that stubborn motherfucker was still sitting there. Still as solid. Still as brown. Still as present as when it first touched the porcelain.
It was a that moment that I remembered the water shortage. Restaurants and airports had shut off their general water supply, and here I was, trying a third flush on one washroom trip. Three times the charm? Yeah, fuck that, the little guy was still there. It was time for desperate measures.
I take the plunger, and I push on it. Except (of course), it doesn’t go down solidly. Instead, it disintegrates into pieces. Now it’s on the plunger too! Frantically, I flush. To my relief, the water becomes clearer. But what the hell was I supposed to do about the plunger? I flush again, rubbing the plunger against the toilet. The chunks fall off. I flush. A little clearer. I flush: finally, finally, FINALLY, nothing.
Tomorrow, I poop again. But I think I’m going to wait until I get to a public toilet. After all, South Africa is going through a water shortage, and we all have to do our part.
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