A Real Crap Situation

Forgive me for a little bit of potty humor here, but Indians really like to play with poop. It’s almost literally everywhere here. Pass by any place in India where cows are being raised, and you will likely see large patties of cow dung and hay stacked up on walls outside in the sun. They’re cow cakes, and when you dry them out with a bit of grass, they make great fuel. No, they don’t smell bad when you burn them. It’s a very clean and efficient alternative to burning wood, and why not use it if you’ve got it?

Here’s another example, and please don’t get too grossed out. This is fair warning for anybody who wants to come to India, and that includes the MSU students who are thinking about joining me on the Palampur program this summer. Indians don’t use toilet paper.

Please don’t freak out. It’s okay, it’s fine, and here, it’s perfectly normal. So what’s the big deal? Next to every toilet is a faucet with a small cup attached to it. You use the water and your left hand to clean yourself and you wash your hands well after you’re done. That’s why part of the food culture here that one must learn is to not eat with your left hand. It’s frowned upon. You can touch your food with it occasionally, but as little as possible, and you never bring the food to your mouth with your left hand.

I know there’s a lot of Westerners thinking right now that this must be so unclean and unsanitary, and they should learn to be more civilized and germ-free. Well, think about this for a second. What makes you so sure that using wadded-up pieces of paper is a better way? If you say because it’s cleaner, then why? The only reason you think it’s cleaner is because since before you could talk, your parents or whoever has taught you one particular way of using the toilet and said that it’s hygienic. You were too young to think otherwise, and now you just go along with it. It’s the same with people here. That’s the way they grew up, and to them, it’s safe. Honestly, as long as you wash your hands, it is. And it’s much better on the environment than throwing away paper.

Why bring this up now? Because today I leaned that the floor of my house is made from cow dung. When it’s dried and mixed with some natural chemicals and mud, it’s soft, long-lasting and a great bug repellant. So basically I’ve been walking on poop for 6 weeks in my bare feet without realizing it. The most surprising thing about the realization was that I wasn’t too shocked at all. Everybody poops, you know?

So next time you think you got a crap life, remember that at least you’re not walking around in it.