About to Burst in Zanzibar

You know how people make comments about "Be careful what you eat while traveling, otherwise you might spend a bit of quality time with the toilet?" Well, I had managed to prove these people wrong in spite of the fact that, while in Zanzibar, I ate all kinds of foods off the street. I chewed this roadside cuisine after picking it up with my right hand, the same hand that touched shillings, coins and everything else. I expected that the toilets of this Tanzanian island and I would know each other as well as I knew the ones in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Though surprisingly, up until this point, I had no bowelistic problems.

It was the end of my five-week stay in Tanzania. I had attended the Zanzibar International Film Festival, made a host of friends, and had managed to see much of this spectacular Indian Ocean isle. I had been so busy with activities during my stay that I had almost forgotten to visit the host family of my Swahili professor at UCLA who had asked that I bring her family a packet of pictures she had taken on her last trip.

It was a few days before I was to go to Nairobi and one of the last errands I had to run before exiting the isle. Prior to safaring into a community outside of Stonetown I spoke with Zuhura’s host family and obtained directions to their abode. It was nerve racking to comprehend directions in Swahili, and as excited as I was to understand the words I realized that I still had no idea where I was to go. I was instructed to take a daladala from Darejani market to a stop called Kanisani, which was named after the minority Catholic Church in a predominantly Muslim island. When I got off the truck, a boy in a blue shirt and glasses would be waiting there and would escort me to the house. Luckily my friend Ahmed agreed to tag a long with me, so I wouldn’t get lost.

Before heading to the family’s house, I had spent the day with my friend Jamila and her family, where I ate a hardy lunch of rice, beans, salad and meat, per usual and I was fine. Then a few hours later Ahmed and I took a bus back to town where we returned to the house for a little rest. I started to feel a little "questionable” but I just assumed it was a wee bit of gas, nothing big.

At 5pm Ahmed and I strolled to the market to catch a dala dala, a flat bed pick up truck attached with bench seats and head coverings. After the daladala loaded all the passengers and merchandise, we were off to the outskirts of the city. It took around 30 minutes to arrive at the church and as soon as I put the change in the driver’s hand and exited the transport, I felt a shooting pain in my entrails. I was in the middle of nowhere, and the only person I saw was a man selling fruit and cold drinks from a little stand on the side of the road. As the “gotta go gotta go” feeling arrived, I attempted to not admit what was wrong with me while scoping out an exit strategy.

As far as the eye could see was a settlement of small houses along a road of dense coconut trees. I was just about to start asking who I could pay to use the loo when our lovely escort arrived. Granted, my stomach was in sailor knots at this point and thus I lost all sense of cultural etiquette. As soon as the young man greeted Ahmed and I, I said, “Do you live far from here?” This probably sounds like an appropriate question to the untrained ear, but this is defiantly not a suitable introductory question in Swahili culture. One must first ask how the other person is doing, introduce themselves and then delve into other questions after asking about the other person’s day and family. But really, time was of the painful essence.

The young man stated that he lived close by, so this response put me at ease for a moment. We were walking rather slowly, as people tend not to be in a rush, but I wasn’t sure if I’d make it without leaking. I then whispered to Ahmed, “Can we hurry up, I need to use the ladies room." Ahmed speaks English although he was not familiar with the term "ladies room" So instead of beating around the bush I had to say, "I have got to go to the toilet, nahitaji kuenda chooni. SASA!."

To my relief the house was around the corner, however because I had never met these people before and it is per Swahili culture to greet everyone in a lengthy way, I was trying to figure out how I was going to politely run in their house and jump on the toilet.

There is no way to doll up the shameful way I ran into this house, tossed off my shoes, introduced myself quickly and said, "may I use your bathroom?" This seems like a normal question, but I said this instead of "how are you, how is your family, how is the house, work, etc." I think they understood the predicament I was in and thus said warmly that I could of course use the bathroom though I had to wait for one of the children to fetch a pail of water for the flushing.

Finally I could see the finish line in the distance, I could see the toilet but I couldn’t go in it till the water came. They told me to wait and I was crossing my legs and praying to any god that would listen to please allow me to survive the embarrassment of this moment. An eternity later, one of the kids supplied me with a bucket of water and I was free to dive into the stall.

I was in there for what felt like an hour, which was probably more like 10 minutes. I then emerged from the thrown, satisfied and apologetic that I had been so rude to not greet everyone properly. When I felt like I was going to bust into a million pieces, it wasn't funny, but while in the bathroom I thought how ridiculous it must be for this family to have a strange white woman in their bathroom doing God knows what. Ah, humanity.

In the end I think they forgave me, or were too polite to point out the strangeness of it all, including the fact that I had brought a male friend along with me. We sat and talked with the family for a while as I hoped to make up for my awkward first impression, all I could think of was why did that have to happen at the worst possible moment?