Kanga Down the Choo Hole
Drawstring Writing Workshop Featured Work
By Jenny Davis
Due to the truly hilarious nature of this story, as well as Jenny’s natural charisma, we asked her to read and record this piece for us. In addition, we hope this expands accessibility for those who for whatever reason need, prefer or better engage with audio content. Enjoy!
I shit my pants.
Not my pants, really, but a pair of lavender granny panties and three feet of a full kanga. Kangas are a staple wardrobe for many Tanzanian women, and men may wear them around the house; they’re used to carry babies and shopping and tools and anything else that can be wrapped up and swung over a shoulder. They’re practical and beautiful fabrics in vivid colors and bold patterns, and I was told a few weeks prior to the pants shitting that I’d need a few of my own. Foregoing the shop owner’s offer to divide and hem the massive textile in favor of catching up to my boyfriend, I hustled out of the stall. He’d left me alone in Dar es Salaam’s largest market, on my second day in-country, to search for his friends–some vendors he’d latched onto, young men who’d likely not return the familiar designation.
I traveled to Tanzania at the start of my twenty-third year to “volunteer.” White saviorism being a somehow admirable option for a liberal state university grad unsure what direction to go next. I told friends and family and anyone who would listen that I was going to help people. Nobody ever asked how I’d be helping or with what knowledge, wisdom or resources. Not at all and none were the answers, which I discovered soon after arrival. Without much presence of mind, I turned quietly away from the fantasy of helping to what seemed a more reasonable goal–not hurting anyone.
The true (and equally gross) reason I flew halfway around the world was to follow my boyfriend. Jake. His name was not one often encountered in Tanzania, so he’d usually have to spell it. Once, to a porter checking our backpacks into the hold of a bus, he’d done the usual clarifying back-and-forth, which ended in him spelling his full name. J. A. no, not e, a. C. O. B. Upon arrival, we waited until all of the other passengers had collected their bags so that, by process of elimination, we could identify Jake’s. His name didn’t match anything the arrival porter could find because what was written on the ticket was Jecoti.
* I told friends and family and anyone who would listen that I was going to help people. Nobody ever asked how I’d be helping or with what knowledge, wisdom or resources. Not at all and none were the answers, which I discovered soon after arrival. *
Jake was in Tanzania working, doing actual useful work depending by what metric you measure, in the northeast plains region. It was the dry season when I arrived, so the landscape was bleak, mostly shades of pale yellow, brown and brick red from the iron and aluminum heavy soil. It was cold at night and lovely during the day. There were small mountains near enough to day hike, a few churches, a small hospital, an outdoor market, two or three bars and about a dozen expats. Jake lived with one of his organization’s founders before my arrival, and would send letters and sometimes taped recordings of the sounds around him (mostly goats) or mundanities of his daily life (so boring). Mail took weeks in either direction, and every few months Jake travelled to the city, where he’d visit a pay-by-the-minute internet cafe so we could instant message for an hour or two. We were apart for nine months, and these were our primary modes of communication–letter writing and the tapes. I only sent one or two, partially recorded, because I was too self-conscious to do more. The question of their current whereabouts haunts me, still and often.
He picked me up from the airport, and as I waited to go through customs the only thing separating us was an institutional-green line painted on the floor. Just a few feet apart, we weren’t allowed to touch or greet each other. During our nine months of ultra-long distance, I’d gained about thirty pounds of stress and fear-of-abandonment weight, and he’d lost what appeared to be the same. He had gained what I’ll generously call a mustache. It was the stringy, long-stranded, sparse mustache that so many young men grow as soon as their bodies allow. So. He’d gained that–as well as a deep devotion to another woman, but I wasn’t aware of said devotion at the time of the pants shitting so she won’t be making an appearance here. The entry process took long enough for each to evaluate the other, and when we did finally hug it was stiff and awkward. The mustache (and eventually the infidelity) made him hard to look at. It made it hard to take him seriously as someone I’d chosen to be close to or interested in, and the way he looked at me let me know that the changes I’d gone through were having a similar effect.
In the taxi ride to the city I couldn’t make sense of anything. I was halfway across the world, sat next to a strange-ish man, watching the scenery fly by–open field, man in a coconut tree, palm tree, acacia, palm tree, palm tree, palm tree, tin houses, open field, industrial buildings, pieces of buildings held up by a scaffold of thin, curved trees. Maybe branches. Were they being built? Were they being demolished? Had there been a war here? I asked Jake if there’d been a storm–such a long way around my actual question which I knew was at least ignorant and more likely plainly offensive. “No, that’s just what construction looks like here, you absolute fool and bumpkin,” is not what he said, but it’s how what he said felt.
* During our nine months of ultra-long distance, I’d gained about thirty pounds of stress and fear-of-abandonment weight, and he’d lost what appeared to be the same. He had gained what I’ll generously call a mustache. It was the stringy, long-stranded, sparse mustache that so many young men grow as soon as their bodies allow. *
When we arrived at the hotel, our taxi driver recommended we not leave after dark or follow anyone offering unsolicited directions. There was a common scam at the time in which one was led to a place where something mildly illegal was going on. The police happened to be nearby, but the kind officers would be happy to leave you out of it for the right price. For me, a woman, this advice was an unnecessary reminder of the apparent fact of my victimness–reinforced daily, everywhere, by everything. Jake thanked him with a heavy blast of condescension, and reassured me that we’d be fine to do both. We wouldn’t. A day or two later, he was robbed exactly as the driver had warned, and was even roughed up a bit by the police for trying to argue his way out of the scam…or because of the mustache. Hard to say. Likely both.
We walked down a small side street, turned into the open door of a fifteen foot metal gate and stepped into the lobby of the Safari Inn. We checked in and Jake politely greeted a man watching a Bollywood movie in one of two dark floral patterned velvet occasional chairs of the lounge. As soon as I’d dropped my bags, Jake pulled out a letter and announced he was going to read it aloud. I can’t remember why he’d written and not sent it. Something about timing; he was worried it wouldn’t get to me before I left. I think he imagined it would be a huge gesture or, now knowing he was in love with someone else, maybe the effect he was going for was exactly what he got. So, to me–a young woman who’d been awake for thirty seven hours, who’d not showered in days, who’d not eaten since before the transatlantic leg of her journey and who’d not had any water since before boarding the plane that delivered her to where she now found herself–he read a love letter. From his face to my face–in a room with a bare bulb on the ceiling, mustard and mint walls, a single bed made up with pepto pink sheets and the evening call to prayer floating in through the carved window screen–he read a love letter. I was maybe touched, but also, and mostly, uncomfortable. I couldn’t really hear what he was saying, my attention bounced around the room, outside to the city sounds and then back in. For all the unfamiliarity, the feeling between Jake and I was most alien. The details of the letter are too hazy to recount, but my thoughts were something like this: Who is this thin man with half a dozen long mustache hairs reading me this letter? What’s that singing? It’s so beautiful, but I don’t know what they’re saying and now they’re kind of yelling. Should I be afraid? Of either? Of both? I’m so overwhelmed. What have I done? I don’t belong here. We broke up before he left for Tanzania, I was going to teach English in Japan, but then he started sending me these letters. I definitely don’t love him and likely never have. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Shiiiiiiiiittttttttt.
When he finished the letter, he asked if I wanted to have sex. The question was such a sharp turn. Even his voice was more deadpan, or sort of bored, compared to the grand gesture affect he was using to read the letter. I said no, but not in the way that I’d meant it. I’d meant: Are you fucking kidding me? I’m fully, 100% freaking out. Can’t you see that?! Do you even know me? Can you see outside yourself at all? Jesus fucking Christ, man! No, I don’t want to have sex with you right now, or ever probably! Instead, I said something squirmy, something squishy and slimy and not true. Something that spared his feelings and me from having to deal with mine.
* In the morning, the entire left side of my body was covered in the tell-tale tracks and clusters of bed bug bites. Jake was saved the same fate, having slept mostly on me the whole night. Sometimes, even now, if I’m fighting a cold, they’ll reappear. *
After a few blurry, jetlagged days, we travelled to a beach town up the coast where we met a friend of his, Luke. The motel was whitewashed clay with tiny lizards running up and down the walls, near but not on the water. The boys wanted to go to the beach, but I made an excuse. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing me fully in that brilliant equatorial sunlight, I probably said I was tired. Which was not fully a lie. There was also talk of a nightclub after dinner, but I was having a silent meltdown, silent even to myself at that point. I went to bed and woke up to Jake climbing on top of me; not in a predatory way, he just liked to sleep like that sometimes. In the morning, the entire left side of my body was covered in the tell-tale tracks and clusters of bed bug bites. Jake was saved the same fate, having slept mostly on me the whole night. Sometimes, even now, if I’m fighting a cold, they’ll reappear. I’ve googled it and asked my doctor friends, but no one knows why.
From the beach town we moved on to Luke’s mountaintop research facility. He was there to study birds, but there was also a butterfly sanctuary. The bus was only able to traverse three quarters up the mountain so we walked the rest. I was wearing a ridiculous homemade wrap skirt I was told would be practical and appropriate (by whom?!). More than once, I tripped over it, pulling it open to reveal my sweaty granners–the only style underwear I’d packed, to Jake’s dismay and to my perfect 20/20 hindsight delight. I was also beginning to show signs of dehydration, but having never experienced the condition in my small and comfortable midwestern life, I didn’t recognize the symptoms. Fatigue and irritability were dismissed by Jake and so also by me. Luke tried to keep things light by telling us there were just ten or so miles to go as we climbed a steep incline that, in fact, peaked at the back patio entrance of his research facility. I started to cry silently when he said it, but I couldn’t make tears so no one noticed. That night, we slept in a tent on top of the mountain. I was underdressed and freezing, and asked Jake to share my sleeping bag with me through clattering teeth. He declined.
I put spoonfuls of sugar on my morning millet and ate two candy bars a day. My body, desperate for water, was tricking me into craving sweet things. Jake asked if I really needed the second Snickers. We left on the third day and rode seven hours to the capital. We found the only available lodging, a convent, and walked to a restaurant that served wine. For dinner Jake had dried fish stew, I had chicken. The wine was homemade, tasted like spoiled vinegar and was also somehow lumpy. I had a sip, but could hardly eat or drink as my body slowly shrivelled.
The next day we muscled our way onto a bus. Jake left me on my own again, and at one point a kid, or maybe a very small man, tried to steal my backpack. It was strapped to me in three places, but I think my weight advantage may have been what stopped him. I didn’t tell Jake about it. The bus was a sort of vintage customized school bus with a hand-painted scene across the body: life-size lions, Batman, Lionel Ritchie, men boxing and a slogan that translated to something along the lines of “we’re the best bus.” The interior of ours had another sort of customization in the form of a few partial and missing seats. We found one that had a back but no bottom, and put our bags inside the cavity. I was comfortable until the aisle began to fill. A woman started her journey leaning on my upper back and neck, and ended it with one butt cheek on either side of my shoulder. Her full weight rested on her tailbone, which I could feel pressing my shoulder joint slightly out of place. I tried to ask her to move at one point, but Jake stopped me. He didn’t say why and I didn’t ask.
* The bus was a sort of vintage customized school bus with a hand-painted scene across the body: life-size lions, Batman, Lionel Ritchie, men boxing and a slogan that translated to something along the lines of “we’re the best bus.” *
We hadn’t packed any food or water. Jake was self-conscious about doing anything that would call attention to us being outsiders. Our fellow travellers weren’t buying snacks or bottled water, so neither were we. Nevermind our light skin, our obviously foreign fashions or expensive gear. Nevermind our everything. He was firm, and I’d love to say I obliged because the dehydration or culture shock meltdown had diminished my agency. But, it was really just my baseline internalized misogyny chiming in to agree with whatever man was telling me what the truth was.
It was dark but not late when we arrived to our new home town. Another man tried to take my bag. This time, before my fight or flight kicked in, Jake stopped him and introduced us. He was a friend and invited us to dinner. I declined and Jake accepted at the same time. My response was firmly ignored, but my reaction to being ignored was not. I sighed and scowled and said something like, “I can’t fucking believe this.” Jake’s friend wasn’t fluent in English, but he did understand the universal language of disregarding a woman’s wishes. He laughed with Jake at my expense, and the dinner plan was set.
I took in the house–two cinder block rooms, a single bed in one, a kerosine cooking stove in the other–and then unintentionally started a fight. I told Jake I was too exhausted to socialize, that I felt weird but couldn’t put my finger on why. Not sick (very sick), but definitely not well (dangerously unwell). He didn’t acknowledge the complaints about my body, bypassing to insist it was culturally insensitive to decline a dinner invitation. This was the first of many times my lack of cultural understanding would be used against me. He wasn’t wrong, I should have but didn’t know anything about the manners or customs of this country. I also didn’t know the word gaslighting, but I was aware that whatever was happening felt bad. I acquiesced when he told me we didn’t have any food or water, so I could stay home without dinner and offend people or I could just go with him.
* I sighed and scowled and said something like, “I can’t fucking believe this.” Jake’s friend wasn’t fluent in English, but he did understand the universal language of disregarding a woman’s wishes. He laughed with Jake at my expense, and the dinner plan was set.*
The first thing our host offered was a glass of water, poured from a pitcher that had been dipped into an open oil drum full of what I would later discover was perfectly safe rain water. I used my limited Swahili to thank our host and took fake sips all evening with the classic western warning, “don’t drink the water,” doing laps around my pounding head. I stayed mostly quiet and smiled when the conversation seemed to require it. On a solo visit to the village months later, I found out that everyone was under the impression that I was a top-to-bottom dummie. They thought it was strange that Jake always spoke for me and were unsettled by how much I smiled. Not wrong.
We fought again when we got home from dinner. My body finally made it clear exactly what it needed, and I asked Jake to walk me into the center of the town to see if we could find some bottled water. He declined, and chastised me for not understanding his position on doing “just as the locals do.” In one of very few moments of clarity, I told him to fuck off and went on my own. The moon was full, and I wandered around neighbors’ gardens and snuck between houses at the places where the road or path disappeared. A donkey started following me at some point, so calm and nonchalant, like we both just happened to be going to town. He walked with me all the way to the night store and back to our house. My silent friend. I chugged one, two then four or maybe six litres of water, and felt immediately better, so had no problem with Jake’s disapproving cold shoulder. The tension finally exploded while unpacking. He noticed I’d not followed his very clear instructions. He was disgusted by my inability to follow his complete and unquestionable list. Wet wipes. We had a screaming fight about wet wipes, which was, of course, not about wet wipes.
We went to sleep with our backs to each other. In the middle of the night, I woke up with intestinal pain so bad I knew there was no discreet way to remedy it. Too ashamed of my body’s natural processes to bear the thought of honking out a huge fart in front of this mean man, I forced myself back to sleep. The rumbling turned into searing cramps, and I shot out of bed fully awake and aware that what was happening was an emergency. I smashed out of bed and scrambled for my clothes. In the darkness, my frantic hunt landed me the kanga and one of Jake’s shoes. I tripped over one of my own on the way to the front door, and put everything on while I tried to flip and slide and turn and twist the latch, fighting to stay vertical against the pain in my stomach. With two left shoes and a train of kanga dragging behind me I took tiny, knees-together run-walk steps to the outside toilet, the choo. I had one foot through the door when it happened.
So close. Such relief. Chills.
I felt my body relax for the first time since setting my eyes on Jake and his skinny mustache at the airport. I stepped fully into the outhouse, laughing quietly to and at myself. The absurdity. The humiliation. Such a tornado of emotions, set aside while I focused on the very important question in front of me: What are you going to do about this? Granners, down the choo hole. The extra nine feet of the kanga to clean myself up, then down the choo hole. The shoes, untouched. Finally, in just my very flattering fitted J Crew cotton pajama tank and mismatched shoes, the next question arrived: How are you going to get back to the house? More quiet laughing, stalling, but also soaking in the ludicrousness of standing pantless in the middle of the night, twenty feet from a house I had to share with a man I didn’t know anymore in the middle of a place I didn’t belong. I ran back to the little house in the light of the moon. My donkey peeked his head around the far corner as if he were in on it, standing guard to make sure no one had seen. This sent me into full, deep belly laughter, which woke Jake up and then quickly turned to the hysterical wheezing that runs through my mom’s side of the family. It’s the shoulder heaving, huge nasally inhale and ragged exhale sort of laughter that has no use for a voicebox. Jake stood in the bedroom doorway for a few seconds watching as I was doubled over in the dark making these noises.
“Are you... crying?”
I couldn’t answer, too funny.
“Why aren’t you wearing any pants?”
“I (huge inhale), I (heave, heave, heave)... I shit my pants.”