It's late and I am tired so rather than share a serious story, I want to tell you a funny story. Having been to Africa before, I thought I was prepared for this trip. I quickly found out that I was uninformed about squatty potties. I never saw them last time I was in Africa and thought they only had them in China. The definition of a squatty potty is a hole in the ground with a little tile or ceramic around it. To use a squatty potty one must squat and aim for the small hole. Then you can take the gasoline can that is really filled with water and wash any remaining contents down the hole. We laughed a lot about our first reactions to squatty potties. But, when you gotta go, you gotta go and I wanted to immerese myself in the culture as much as possible. So, I went for it. My first experience was not a good one- I got an F when it came to how to successfully use a squatty potty. Thank goodness for the lysol wipes in my bag. :)

That night we were still laughing at our reactions and I made a comment that I needed to watch a squatty potty tutorial. Our group leader broke out in an improptu squatty potty coach class for those of us who were unexperienced. She said the key to mastering the squatty potty was "getting low". We were also advised to hold onto the rope on the back of the door if there was one. So we all started practicing our stances and then one of the guys on our team walked in and had a very frightened and confused look on his face.We were all jet lagged and delirious at this point and I think we were all laughing so hard that we were crying.

The rest of the trip questions went something like this, "How was the bathroom? Is it a squatty?" Some chose to never use a squatty (a majority of the places had real potties) . The others of us took pride in the fact that we mastered the squatty potty in our two weeks in Africa. It is quite the leg workout! So we learned to be thankful for many things, including our toilets.