My Puppy Fell Down the Douche, March 2014

Douches are wonderful things.  Think about it; they're low maintenance, they're where the term 'douche bag' originates from, and they solve sanitation problems!  And open deification is a terrible problem.  In fact, I plan to work on a douche-building project to address the negative health effects of open deification.  But douches also pose a security threat.  A threat caused by an overly large douche-hole and an inquisitive puppy. 

The scene was set when my puppy, named by my brother after the famous Senegalese singer 'Youssa-Ndor,' decided to run away the night before I embarked for a month-long set of trainings and conferences.  Figuring the pint sized bundle of inquisitive energy would either re-embrace his origins in the African bush or realize that making it in the real world is hard and thus return the next day for dinner, I left my village unconcerned.  The trouble announced itself when I took a call from my host father as I was boarding public transportation in a distant town.

Saliou: "Yassine, your dog returned."

Erin, hearing the puppy barking in the background:  "Great!"

Saliou:  "There's a problem, he fell down the douche.  What should we do?"

Erin: ........... "Get him out?"

And then the public transportation took off and the ensuing cacophony made it impossible to hear the rest of the phone call, or any of my thoughts beyond 'ohhhhhh....shit. Literally.'

For those of you who may be curious how my puppy fell down my toilet or why I thought this was an unsolvable problem, let me acquaint you with some basic knowledge about douches.  I have one of the cheapest version of douches, pictured here.

It's covered in a lot of dust, so you probably can't see the particulars too well.  It's just a pit dug out of the ground covered with a concrete cover with a hole, covered by a bag, where I'm able to do my business.  On the plus side, I've gotten very strong legs from so much squatting.  On the downside, this version poses several hygienic and  structural security risks.  As my puppy found out all too well.

From what I've asked my family and some basic deduction on my part, I learned that my puppy took his favorite game of 'tugging-the-burlap-bag-filled-with-sand-which-covers-the-douche-hole' a step too far and removed the bag, and then fell down into a mixture of my excrement and trash.  Thankfully, I haven't been using my douche for too long so it wasn't an actual sea of waste for my puppy to drown in... not a pleasant way to go.

Nonetheless, I was pretty concerned that my puppy would suffer from the buildup of gasses in the douche (it smells pretty bad), starvation and lack of water, or just bake to death beneath a concrete roof in 100 degree weather.  In typical fashion, for the first couple of days I decided I wouldn't call my dad.  This was two months ago and my lack of confidence in my language skills led me to believe that, even if I did manage to think of some brilliant method to save the puppy, I wouldn't be able to communicate it in Wolof.  And I didn't want to hear that my puppy had died in the douche.  So I traveled with my friends to Thies and Dakar, and I must say that listening to their suggestions, sympathy, and comments did not make things better.  My friends could not think of a single way to get the puppy out of the douche- and we Peace Corps Volunteers are a pretty resourceful lot!  One friend reminded me that, even if they got the puppy out of the douche, my problems wouldn't be over.  My family would either create a major health risk by letting a feces-covered dog run around the village or lock a feces-covered dog in my room for a month.  Gross. 

Deciding that I needed to warn against these possible scenarios, I tried to call my dad.  Every other day for three weeks.  First, his phone was dead.  Then, his phone was out of credit.  Then his phone was dead again.  Finally, I was able to get through to my dad and, after greeting every adult in my family, asking about work and children, commenting on the weather, explaining when I was coming home, etc. I was able to ask about the fate of my pet.

"Oh, your 15 year old brother got him out..."

Um...how?

"It was very hot..."

Yeah.... but, how?

"Very hot, the dog whined a lot.  The puppy cried..."

Yes, well if you fell into a pile of poop that was bigger than you I think you'd cry too.

"See you when you get home!"

Once home, I found the puppy clean (how on Earth did they manage that?!?!?!) and was unable to get the specifics on how the rescue operation occurred.  I suppose it will always remain a mystery.  I'm about to start my douche-building project and I'll be enforcing some strict safety measures, such as having the douche-holes no larger than the size of a coffee can so that children and puppies cannot fall in.  Otherwise, they'd be in deep.... well, you get the idea.