I don’t think I have seen or heard of anything that scares a man like ‘giza la mashambani’. Not that it is darker than it is in the city but wueh! stepping out at night at my granny’s place is not an easy task.
Two years ago, my uncles and aunties joined hands and decided time was ripe to connect the home with electricity. Despite the lighting however, one still needs a torch to assist johnny at night. Woe unto you if your call is the long one. The throne sits alone, hidden between the bananas and the ‘umkokola’ (Dovyalis caffra) fence.
Once, during Christmas, I was busy making a long transaction on a windy night. Before I could wipe myself, the banana leaves rubbed off the roof of the latrine. I felt like someone was there watching. Ready to attack me from the root. My brain stopped working. Nerves were under cryoablation. Whatever happened that night, I wiped myself in the morning!
I have, for a while now, been asking my uncles to put up a new latrine at my granny’s place. One that is closer to the main house, well-lit and free from the bananas and the fence but all in vain. Last year, my cousins had a masterplan. To save and set up a modern latrine for use when we are at home. Or when visitors tour our village. Valentines passed, Easter came and went and as we sung White Christmas by Bing Crosby, the plan with my cousins was still a plan.
This latrine can tell more stories about my granny’s home than my parents, uncles and aunties and my cousins combined. Elders and community leaders have relieved themselves in this graven little shelter. Church leaders and non-church goes alike. Despite its evolving names, from ‘choo’ to lavatory to ‘nyumba ndogo’, the structure hasn’t evolved a centimeter.
While new washrooms have been constructed around the home, children born and given birth to new generations, the structure still stands firm. By the way, don’t old traditional toilets ever get full? Our neighbor at home builds a modern toilet next to our traditional hut-like structure. His has required the services of a honeysucker on twice in 3 years. Maybe our old toilet donated its assets to that of our neighbor’s. Can toilets do that?
Legends are not always those who do the great and mighty things. Sometimes we fail to notice the greatest of all times because they focus on doing little unimaginable actions. Like the toilet that holds Christmas festivity’s wastes year after year. From one generation to another.
Renovating the toilet at my granny’s place is my 2023 resolution. Not that the toilet fell sick, or because it once scared me during a Christmas night. Not that it demanded for equal treatment or asked for a day off. It simply does what a good toilet should do after a feast; it takes feast products.
