Only in Africa (2)

Is it polite to talk about what in Wales we call the 'Ty Bach' ?    (The small house .... the tiniest room ... in Swahili, the choo).  

The first house we lived in, in Ng'iya about 40 miles west of Kisumu, was a very old dilapidated house in a school compound, probably built about 1930.   There was water laid on to a cold tap in the kitchen, and another in the bathroom, but no loo.  The head teacher of that school knew we were coming, so had hurriedly organised that a loo should be built for us ... outside, in the garden. 

It was the usual long-drop, pit latrine, hole in the ground type, in a 'mud-hut' kind of building, with thatch roof and a creaky, roughly made door, with cracks between each plank. The door was about 5ft tall, to allow light to shine in at the top.  The door handles were wooden cotton reels; there was a loop of string and a nail to secure the door on the inside.  When the head inspected it, she said we had to have a 'sit-down' seat, so the school fundi (carpenter) was shown a European loo in one of the modern houses, and instructed to construct a similar one for us, in wood.  He did; he made a cube like box, about two feet tall, with a small, hard square hole cut in the top ... and there it was, a throne fit for white bottoms .... made of rough wood, still with bark on, and the hole jagged and full of splinters !

This edifice functioned perfectly well during the day, (after we had requested some sand-paper) but we hadn't forseen the problems of night useage.  It gets dark very suddenly on the Equator, at about 6.30 p.m.   At first, we had only one paraffin hurricane lamp, and a night trip to the loo necessitated leaving one person in darkness in the house while the other went outside.   

Now, bright lights in the tropics attract moths, bats and beetles.   And there was the problem; how to prevent every creature from yards around from entering the loo and fluttering around the head of the person seated in contemplation ?   One needed the light to check there were no snakes being disturbed in the small house, yet one didn't need to be invaded by hundreds of moths and beetles.  What to do ?

Well, every question has an answer .... so the solution was to put the lamp down on the ground about ten yards away from the choo after checking for snakes, and then leave the door open !    (And hope no student or anyone else was walking past and could observe the sight of a brightly illuminated mzungu sitting on a box with pants around the ankles !)