So the first couple of days that I have been at site in Burrell my site mate Kristen has been staying with me because she doesn’t have an apartment yet. My apartment is a wonderful 5th floor walk-up in a communist block apartment complete with mostly cement floors and a Turkish toilet/shower combo (for those that do not know what a Turk is, it is a squatty potty…or a glorified hole in the floor). Since I’ve been in Albania, I haven’t had a problem with flushing toilet paper dow
n the toilet in any circumstance. At my host family we had a Western toilet that flushed and most other places have Western toilets with power flush (meaning that you just dump a bucket of water to flush everything down…not sure exactly where the “power flush” name came from), Turks that flush, or Turk with a power flush.
So Kristen and I had been using the toilet for about 5 days and noticed that it had started draining a little slow. It’s kind of hard to tell from what…since the shower water drains into the same hole, it looked like there had been remnants of paint and plaster dumped down the toilet hole, and dumping a bucket of water down a hole to get rid of your poop really doesn’t have any “flushing” mechanism. Since neither one of us had spent a significant amount of time with a Turk, we weren’t sure if there was anything else we were supposed to do, or if it was just draining slow (since I’m on the 5th floor), etc.
So my landlord stopped by to check up on things and to bring back my refrigerator that had been broken. He asked if everything was ok, and I asked him if everything looked alright in the bathroom (without specifically mentioning the toilet). He walked into the bathroom to take a look and made sure the water heater was plugged in and the water was turned on, etc. Before I could specifically ask about the toilet, he was already headed towards the door to leave and I couldn’t think fast enough in Albanian to figure out what to ask him for the toilet.
Luckily, he returned after an hour to check to make sure the refrigerator was cooling correctly. This time I made sure to specifically mention that the toilet was really REALLY slow and the water was getting really close to the rim of the hole. I’m not sure if Turks can overflow, but I certainly didn’t want that happening! He took a peek down the hole and started groaning Albanian style (which basically sounds like “oh ba ba” repeatedly, followed by fake spitting sounds), and saying “shume gabim”…meaning “really big mistake!” Apparently, we were not supposed to be putting any toilet paper down the toilet. No one mentioned this to me when I moved in at the beginning and since I had used Turks with a bucket flush before and had no problems putting toilet paper down, I didn’t think anything of it. My landlord went into my extra bedroom where there is a bunch of stuff from the previous renter and found a metal rod that he used as a poop stick. If you don’t know what a poop stick is, you have never lived with my college roommates. It’s a stick used to give your poop a boost to help ease it on down the toilet in case of a big poop and lack of good plumbing combo. However, since I think the hole of my toilet is basically a straight shot down and there’s really no way to get a poop stick that long (there’s no such thing as go-go-gadget poop stick), he started pulling toilet paper out of my toilet with the stick and putting it in a plastic bag.
Now to picture this fully, my landlord is a 65-year-old white-haired Albanian man who is retired and wears the typical Albanian sports jacket with a newsy cap who is squatting over my Turk with a metal rod pulling poopy toilet paper out. I forgot to mention that that morning I had taken a ginormous poop due to 2 nights of Mexican food. I asked him if he wanted me to do it instead, and he said no. So I retreated to the living room with Kristen because there’s nothing more awkward than watching your landlord pull your poop out of your own toilet. We couldn’t help ourselves from giggling uncontrollably (silently, of course) as we heard various noises and splashes coming from the bathroom accompanied by the groans of my landlord and the aroma of poop slowly wafting into the living room.
To make things better, during training in Elbasan our training manager had always given us these brief little check-ups at the end of long days when we were all ready to leave our training site and return to our villages. They were always at inopportune moments and we all hated doing them, but every time she would hand them out she would say “it’s time for the dipstick!” So as my landlord is bringing new meaning to the poop stick, Kristen says “it’s time for the dipstick!” …this phrase now has a new fabulous meaning!
To make things EVEN better, apparently that night after my landlord left (he didn’t fix the situation, but made it worse and there was poopy toilet water sitting in my Turk and we couldn’t use the bathroom at all that night), he called my Albanian counterpart at the bashkia. He told him that there was a big problem, but he couldn’t tell him over the phone and they would have to meet for coffee the next morning. So when I got into the bashkia the next morning, George said that he had heard about my problem from the landlord. He said he thought of me as his little sister and wanted to help me get things figured out and not piss off my landlord. But apparently my landlord had told him that he was pulling things out of the toilet that shouldn’t have been down there (…not sure why poop AND toilet paper don’t belong in a toilet). So nothing like knowing that my landlord and my boss were talking about my poop over coffee. And apparently George told the other girls that work in my office about the situation.
So…everyone at the town hall knows about my big poops and my dummy American sense of putting toilet paper down a toilet. I told George that things like this happen to me all the time. However, he thought I meant that I clog up toilets all the time and he looked shocked that this is what he was going to have to deal with for the next 2 years while I’m here. I clarified though, telling him that what I meant was ridiculous things like this happen to me all the time…as all of you can attest. …and not just to me, but I think to all members of my family.
The toilet got fixed the next day (by a plumber who literally brought this small bag that looked like a purse with one rusty instrument in it that didn’t look very big or powerful and took him 5 minutes). My landlord bought me a trash can to put my toilet paper in…and literally went into my bathroom, sat the trash can next to the Turk, and motioned via charades that after I poop, to throw the toilet paper in the trash can…3 times he repeated it.
For those of you that know my affinity for poop stories, you can only imagine that this cross-cultural poop experience made my day! …only because I wasn’t the one scooping it out of the toilet with a dipstick did I enjoy laughing about it…and will continue to laugh about it for the next 2 years!
n the toilet in any circumstance. At my host family we had a Western toilet that flushed and most other places have Western toilets with power flush (meaning that you just dump a bucket of water to flush everything down…not sure exactly where the “power flush” name came from), Turks that flush, or Turk with a power flush.So Kristen and I had been using the toilet for about 5 days and noticed that it had started draining a little slow. It’s kind of hard to tell from what…since the shower water drains into the same hole, it looked like there had been remnants of paint and plaster dumped down the toilet hole, and dumping a bucket of water down a hole to get rid of your poop really doesn’t have any “flushing” mechanism. Since neither one of us had spent a significant amount of time with a Turk, we weren’t sure if there was anything else we were supposed to do, or if it was just draining slow (since I’m on the 5th floor), etc.
So my landlord stopped by to check up on things and to bring back my refrigerator that had been broken. He asked if everything was ok, and I asked him if everything looked alright in the bathroom (without specifically mentioning the toilet). He walked into the bathroom to take a look and made sure the water heater was plugged in and the water was turned on, etc. Before I could specifically ask about the toilet, he was already headed towards the door to leave and I couldn’t think fast enough in Albanian to figure out what to ask him for the toilet.
Luckily, he returned after an hour to check to make sure the refrigerator was cooling correctly. This time I made sure to specifically mention that the toilet was really REALLY slow and the water was getting really close to the rim of the hole. I’m not sure if Turks can overflow, but I certainly didn’t want that happening! He took a peek down the hole and started groaning Albanian style (which basically sounds like “oh ba ba” repeatedly, followed by fake spitting sounds), and saying “shume gabim”…meaning “really big mistake!” Apparently, we were not supposed to be putting any toilet paper down the toilet. No one mentioned this to me when I moved in at the beginning and since I had used Turks with a bucket flush before and had no problems putting toilet paper down, I didn’t think anything of it. My landlord went into my extra bedroom where there is a bunch of stuff from the previous renter and found a metal rod that he used as a poop stick. If you don’t know what a poop stick is, you have never lived with my college roommates. It’s a stick used to give your poop a boost to help ease it on down the toilet in case of a big poop and lack of good plumbing combo. However, since I think the hole of my toilet is basically a straight shot down and there’s really no way to get a poop stick that long (there’s no such thing as go-go-gadget poop stick), he started pulling toilet paper out of my toilet with the stick and putting it in a plastic bag.
Now to picture this fully, my landlord is a 65-year-old white-haired Albanian man who is retired and wears the typical Albanian sports jacket with a newsy cap who is squatting over my Turk with a metal rod pulling poopy toilet paper out. I forgot to mention that that morning I had taken a ginormous poop due to 2 nights of Mexican food. I asked him if he wanted me to do it instead, and he said no. So I retreated to the living room with Kristen because there’s nothing more awkward than watching your landlord pull your poop out of your own toilet. We couldn’t help ourselves from giggling uncontrollably (silently, of course) as we heard various noises and splashes coming from the bathroom accompanied by the groans of my landlord and the aroma of poop slowly wafting into the living room.
To make things better, during training in Elbasan our training manager had always given us these brief little check-ups at the end of long days when we were all ready to leave our training site and return to our villages. They were always at inopportune moments and we all hated doing them, but every time she would hand them out she would say “it’s time for the dipstick!” So as my landlord is bringing new meaning to the poop stick, Kristen says “it’s time for the dipstick!” …this phrase now has a new fabulous meaning!
To make things EVEN better, apparently that night after my landlord left (he didn’t fix the situation, but made it worse and there was poopy toilet water sitting in my Turk and we couldn’t use the bathroom at all that night), he called my Albanian counterpart at the bashkia. He told him that there was a big problem, but he couldn’t tell him over the phone and they would have to meet for coffee the next morning. So when I got into the bashkia the next morning, George said that he had heard about my problem from the landlord. He said he thought of me as his little sister and wanted to help me get things figured out and not piss off my landlord. But apparently my landlord had told him that he was pulling things out of the toilet that shouldn’t have been down there (…not sure why poop AND toilet paper don’t belong in a toilet). So nothing like knowing that my landlord and my boss were talking about my poop over coffee. And apparently George told the other girls that work in my office about the situation.
So…everyone at the town hall knows about my big poops and my dummy American sense of putting toilet paper down a toilet. I told George that things like this happen to me all the time. However, he thought I meant that I clog up toilets all the time and he looked shocked that this is what he was going to have to deal with for the next 2 years while I’m here. I clarified though, telling him that what I meant was ridiculous things like this happen to me all the time…as all of you can attest. …and not just to me, but I think to all members of my family.
The toilet got fixed the next day (by a plumber who literally brought this small bag that looked like a purse with one rusty instrument in it that didn’t look very big or powerful and took him 5 minutes). My landlord bought me a trash can to put my toilet paper in…and literally went into my bathroom, sat the trash can next to the Turk, and motioned via charades that after I poop, to throw the toilet paper in the trash can…3 times he repeated it.
For those of you that know my affinity for poop stories, you can only imagine that this cross-cultural poop experience made my day! …only because I wasn’t the one scooping it out of the toilet with a dipstick did I enjoy laughing about it…and will continue to laugh about it for the next 2 years!
2 comments:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! As for ridiculous things happening in our family, here's one for you. I ordered lasagna recently at an Italian restaurant while out with friends. There was this fly that kept buzzing around, and when I finally swatted at it, it landed in the sauce around the edge of my plate. I tried swatting it again, but it sank deeper in the sauce. Needless to say, I had a fly drown in the sauce around my lasagna. Appetizing, huh?!?!? Anyway, I hope your landlord doesn't have to come fix your toilet ever again. I'm sure that's one experience that you don't need to repeat ;-)
oh man you're ridiculous (in a good way) that was worth the wait. it was good to catch up with you last week. hope all is well esp. in the plumbing department.
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