RuKsaK

It’s not grime, chemicals or lack of standardly expected shithouse paraphernalia which make Saudi Arabian toilets significant to me.

Saudi Arabian toilets are wet. Absolutely dripping. Not piss, bleach, fetid sweat or plain dampness - just water. They have a shower head coiled to the wall, instead of paper, for spraying your starfish clean. The sinks are used for washing feet before prayer, so it’s normal to walk in and see a guy with one leg angled into the wash bowl massaging his foot, and the water splashing all over.
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Shit and piss were not the issues – death was. Not like Elvis stretching out a final bruising turd, but plain, conventional terrorism.

Using public toilets, in my second year in Saudi, intimidated me. Crouching and fretting a pipe bomb might rattle under the door and spread my arse, legs and residues up the wall behind me. A bullet might come drilling through the wood, batter through my brains, sending them anti-clockwise down the s-bend, mixed with my last squit of shit.

Shitting in public toilets in Saudi Arabia made me shit myself.

Vanity surfaced in there too. The idea that I was becoming more of a party piece:
‘Hey – I’m cool. I’ve done shits in places where bullets were more worrying than no paper. Hey – I’m cool.’
I thought about this.

Now, when I concern myself with death, I worry about the designer-labelling of my past fear. Donning escaped-remote chances of murder may have pissed off Death. I've raised my face above the parapet. He might have seen me. Maybe, shitting in Saudi, thinking about my image through it, has put me on the list.

Christ – hope I’m near the bottom, no, at the bottom.

Three weeks ago a Frenchman was leaving the shopping centre I visited weekly with my wife and daughter, and shat in most times. He was shot dead. I doubt he bothered his last moment with where his shit was heading.

Tomorrow - Sri Lanka.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

International Toilet Week; Part two - Saudi Arabia