poop

Poop is an unpleasant thing to think about, but it's been at the forefront of my mind since we returned to our site last week after our workshop in Dodoma. We returned home with some Peace Corps friends who wanted to visit our town, and the first two days were good. Late Saturday night I noticed a foul odor coming from our sewage holding tank, which has been slowly oozing for the last 2 months; upon closer inspection, with a flashlight, we noticed it leaking sewage in a steady stream. Tony grabbed a shovel to dig a little hole for it to run into until we could see properly the next day, and the corroded pipe burst and sewage began flowing. Oh boy. Our houseboy/friend, Gilbert, heard the commotion (he lives next door), woke up, grabbed his shovel and helped Tony shovel dirt over the leak to absorb everything. We knew our sewage system was really old and in terrible shape, and we've been waiting for proper support in fixing it. The time has come--no more procrastination. It burst again the next day, unprovoked, and early this morning I noticed another slow ooze. Now everyone really believes that we have a problem. Everything will be fixed, finally, while we're on holiday in Zanzibar, so we'll return home to a proper toilet situation. To add insult to injury,on our way out of town this morning, all I could smell was the manure from the farms. Enough poop for me.