It was in Italy.
First of all, many of the toilets in Italy are what I believe are termed ‘'Turkish-style”, meaning that they are little more than holes in the floor where one sqats to, ahem, do one’s business.
Some of the Turkish style toilets that I saw were quite clean, but not all of them.
Anyway, I have to admit that I am not a fan of the Turkish style toilet at all. Perhaps if I had grown up using them, they would be perfectly fine; but it’s hard not to worry about the hygenic factor when faced with an unfamiliar toilet.
ON my way North,, from our holiday in Italy, not too far from the Austrian/Italian border,where we stayed in a village near Lago di Garda and had a wonderful time, I stopped at a filling station to fill the tank of our car and to, uh...empty...the other tank.
There was a line leading out of the foul-smelling building in which the toilets were housed. I patiently waited. I saw people leaving the toilets with looks of disgust on their face. I put it down to the smell, which was unusually rank, but mentally prepared myself for the possiblity that the toilet would be a little dirty. (It wouldn’t have been the first dirty toilet I had seen in Italy.)
There was a line leading out of the foul-smelling building in which the toilets were housed. I patiently waited. I saw people leaving the toilets with looks of disgust on their face. I put it down to the smell, which was unusually rank, but mentally prepared myself for the possiblity that the toilet would be a little dirty. (It wouldn’t have been the first dirty toilet I had seen in Italy.)
But nothing prepared me for what was there. Not a lifetime of hardship and toil. Not an impoverished childhoold or a roach-infested childhood home; not a decade of school lunches.
YOu see, the Turkish style toilet’s drain was, apparently, clogged. And there was a MOUNTAIN. A MOUNTAIN of…shit. Piled high. Nearly a meter high. Maybe higher, I don't now. It's not like a measured it.
Like a child’s painstakingly-crafted clay model of a volcano. A lovely shade of reddish brown, gleaming under the warm yellow lights.
Like a child’s painstakingly-crafted clay model of a volcano. A lovely shade of reddish brown, gleaming under the warm yellow lights.
Rivulets of watery shit were running across the floor. You had no choice but to walk on this disgusting surface. Through the soles of my shoes, as I gingerly tread upon the surface, I could feel the grainy texture of it all.
Squatting over the clogged drain was not really a possibility. At least for me. Perhaps an exceedingly tall man could have managed it, if he spread his legs really wide.
So, you kind of had to, you know, stand in front and squat and, you know, drop your… boulders... on the side of this…mountain.
And pray that your actions didn’t start an avalanche.
Now, normally I would have walked out and just gone at the next opportunity. But I really, really had to go. You know how it is when you are on the road.
When I came out, my girlfriend, seeing the shock and horror on my face, asked me what was wrong. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it.
It was two years before the trauma had sufficiently faded to the point where I could talk about this.
Otherwise, it was a lovely holiday. WE went back two years later to Lago di Garda, but the magic had gone.
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