It’s Part of the Experience!!! or TMI

The following  post may be considered “over-share”, too much information (TMI), or just plain too explicit but here it is anyway.  It’s part of the experience. And when it happens, it will be in the most inconvenient place, at the most inconvenient (and retrospectively humorous) time. Read at your own risk.  

So, no travelogue would be complete without the obligatory “unpleasant gastrointestinal experience”.  It happens to everyone who travels.  This entry will not be accompanied by a pictorial representation nor will it be relayed in first person narrative style.  By using third person style one can pretend to be an uninvolved person who conveys the story and not the character about which the story is being told (not being an English major narrative styles may get mixed; purists, forgive me).  In other words, I can pretend that this was not me!!!

You are walking down the street having a great day; just finished work, sun is shining, birds are singing, you’re thinking how wonderful life is ­ everything is hunky dory.  Then it hits.  That twinge that begins with a stomach cramp goes through both intestines into the lower bowels ending with the desperate clenching of the butt cheeks and the posture that is suddenly erect; all this within a fraction of a second.  The twinge causes you to clench your teeth and grab hard to the nearest available solid object.  The one that causes you to do that awkward two-step shuffle/run where you walk as fast as possible while keeping the anus clenched as tightly as conceivable (sometimes using the hands to help because the butt muscles are just not strong enough) your mind totally focused on the anticipation of a convenient toilet. 

What I'd Hoped For

Then the inevitable happens.  You realize that was not “just a fart”.  And there is more on its way.  You clench harder.  You sit down hoping to “push” it back up.  You pray (there are no atheists suffering this particular gastrointestinal nightmare) that you can just hold it for as long as it takes to find a toilet. 

What I Would Have Settled For

Then you surrender to the inescapable.  You start looking for a tree, a bush, a rock, any place where you can have just a smidgen of privacy.  The realization sinks in that you are not going to find any of those things.  This is the Greater Accra region of Southern Ghana.  What you find is red dirt.  You are also in a country of nearly 25 million people (Oregon, approximately the same size as Ghana, has a population of about 4 million people) and they all seem to be nearby at this point in time.  You are not going to find a private hiding spot to do what you have to do.  

So, as discretely as possible you crabwalk off the path and try to blend into the wall surrounding the Queen’s Hotel.  Being, possibly, the only “obroni” in the entire city of Ashaiman makes the blending in part a fantasy that you tell yourself so you feel better about the circumstances.

What I Got

With This On the Other Side!!!

You hike your dress (which women are expected to wear to work) up so that you can peel the clinging, sweat soaked, feces sullied men’s boxers off while attempting to soiling yourself as little as possible.  You’ve been wearing men’s boxers because your upper thighs are, well, corpulent and the friction of flesh rubbing flesh can be extremely painful. Then you let ‘er rip, clean yourself as best you can with the “wet wipes” you’ve learned to carry everywhere you go, and deposit the boxers in one of those convenient black plastic bags you find on the ground everywhere.  Normally the black bags are troubling by right now you are just grateful for them.

Going commando, you then lower your dress and walk off, slightly bowlegged to prevent the above mentioned chaffing, nonchalantly as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.  You mentally prepare for your rear end to once again explode into a terrifying rectal squirt gun.  Fortunately, you make the mile long walk and the half hour tro-tro ride back home without a repeat of the above.  

Safely at home you determine that your boxers are salvageable with a vigorous washing and a good pair of underwear has not suffered a grisly demise.

A few hours later you are very grateful that this seems a single event and not a case of Traveler’s Diarrhea (TD), Mummy Tummy, Thai Two-Step, Roman Runs, Turkey Trots, Delhi Belly, Bangla Dash, Montezuma’s Revenge, Back Door Sprint, Gringo Gallop, Chile Waters, or any other politically incorrect term you may know for Enterotoxigenic escherichia coli or E-coli as it is commonly called.  Though rarely fatal for travelers it can put you out of commission for several days.  

Diarrhea caused by contaminated drinking water does, however, kill nearly 500,000 children in Lesser Developed Countries every year.  Think about that the next time you buy a bottle of water- thereby turning it into a valuable commodity- when you have safe drinking water that comes directly from the tap.  Safe drinking water at the turn of a faucet is a privilege not shared by much of the world’s population.  Another thing that many of us can add to our gratitude lists……