A good spin on the outhouse trips

It is the 11th of May! We have been official volunteers for exactly 18 months now and as I sit here thinking about how quickly time has gone by, I start to wonder what will I miss about being here? For a long time, I thought something that I would not miss at all would be the whole outhouse experience, but I’ve started to notice little things that go with the outhouse trips for which I might start to feel a bit of nostalgia.

Observing moon cycles, for example. In America, I might notice sometimes that it’s a full moon, or when the moon looks really red because of all the pollution in the sky, I might think “that’s pretty.” But now I am almost obsessively observant. A full moon means I don’t really need the flashlight, while a new moon means I try not to have to go out there after 9pm. It’s pretty and functional.

Barnyard animals get in the way, making you think more than usual. It’s annoying, but kind of fun when you have to get through a maze of cows, broken tractors and barking dogs to get to the toilet. I don’t know, maybe it’s weird but I get a kick out of it when it happens.

You find out the weather in the morning. In America, I would leave the house sometimes not at all dressed for the cold or hot it actually was outside. But when you have to go outside first thing in the morning, you get a pretty good idea what you are in for that day.

… Ok, so there’s not that much that I will actually miss about the outhouse, but there is a little.