Five hours on the bus to Tamale had become too much. Our legs were antsy, our minds restless and our bladders overloaded. As the scenery changed, we got a new sense of the rich culture hidden within Ghana. Small villages were settled off the bumpy, dirt road where mud huts were adorned with thatch roofs and smoke spiraled from small fires where meals were being prepared. I wanted to get off the bus not only to relieve my anxious bladder, but also to calm my burning curiosity of who and what was within these mysterious villages.
After pestering our coordinator, Leslie, to let us pee in a bush, she decided to stop at a village in hopes that we would find a toilet. I grew up peeing in the woods by my house, so finding a bush was in a sense more appealing than braving an unknown restroom where the circumstances of the toilet could be questionable.
When we stepped off the bus, a new kind of heat poured down onto our privileged, air-conditioned skin. We had yet to feel a heat this intense at our home in overcast Accra. We followed Leslie and Sonny, our Ghanaian friend and tour guide, as we wandered into the village. As several eager children trailed behind us, I realized that they were just as curious about us as we were about them.
Sonny approached a homestead and began to speak to a young man in Twi, discussing our restroom options. It is times like these that I am so thankful for Sonny. We entered their homestead to find an elder lady grilling fish and cutting up a piece of fatty meat on the dirt ground, flies swarming around the flesh. There were several children playing near the fire rolling around a deflated bike tire and dragging broken toys by pieces of string. Their smiles revealed that they were content to be playing with these found objects.
In the back of their homestead was a three-walled, concrete corner, designed for urinating. Leslie went in first and the rest of us girls formed a line near the fire. We waited in anticipation for the first person to reveal the circumstances we would be braving. Leslie emerged and passed the toilet paper down the line as she warned us that we really don’t need it. I was puzzled, why wouldn’t I need to use toilet paper?
One by one we braved the corner. Shawna and Neethu came out wide-eyed with urgent advice.
“Ariane, you need to roll up your pants,” Shawna said
“Make sure to take a wide stance,” Neethu said as Shawna awkwardly demonstrated.
“It’s just a pipe in the wall,” Both Shawna and Neethu cautiously warned.
Finally it was my turn. I turned the corner and immediately understood what all the excitement was about. Just as they had described, it was a concrete corner with a pipe in the side of the wall. There was no way I would be able to pee directly into the wall, I thought… and so I rolled up my pants and took the widest stance I could manage. In this moment I was grateful I wasn’t a squeamish person and that my 18 years of dance training had made me limber enough to tackle this task. I won’t describe the fine details of this experience, just know that concrete is not an ideal surface to urinate on. There was nowhere to dispose our toilet paper, making the usage of toilet paper an inconvenient convenience.
I triumphantly emerged with some of my own valuable words of advice for those who proceeded after me. As we waited, we watched the family continue to cook their food. They offered us pieces of hot juicy fish and watched us dance joyously with the children. It is simple moments like this that I will freeze frame in my mind forever.
As we wandered back to the bus through the village, I commented that I would love to spend an entire day with a family in their village learning their ways of life. Although I was grateful for my hand sanitizer and wet wipes when I returned to the bus, I was humbled by the simplicity in which so many Ghanaians live. Since I’ve been in Ghana, I’ve learned to appreciate the luxuries we take for granted at home and also embrace the moments that make this experience so unique.