toilet paper

WARNING! This post is not for the faint-stomached.

APOLOGY: To my mother, who I'm sure will be disappointed to see me disregarding the manners she taught me.

Toilet paper. Such a small, unexceptional item. I'm sure I never gave it as much thought in all my life as I have during the past year. I learned early on that it's wise to carry a bit of TP at all times. You never know when or if you'll be able to find a public restroom, and chances are high that toilet paper will not be included. When present, it's rarely available in the stalls. Instead, you will either:

In between customers she makes the little individual TP packets.
Notice the woman off to the left digging in her bag for her own private stash.
Smart, but she'll still have to cough up 50 cents.

1. Purchase it for 50 cents from a woman sitting at a little table outside the restrooms. She'll take your money and hand you a neatly folded packet of toilet paper and a receipt. The receipt always amuses me. It seems a bit unfair that men have to pay the same price even when they don't need the paper. If I were a man, I'd probably take the paper anyway just to get my money's worth. I have this recurring nightmare where I'm in the awkward position of knowing that I'm going to need more TP than the small wad offered and having to ask the lady for more. Thankfully, it's never happened. (One of many reasons to always carry your own supply.)

2. Occasionally, toilet paper will be provided free, in which case it will almost certainly be in one dispenser located in the main area where the sinks are, not in the individual stalls. Even after a year, I'm not used to this, and I'm sure other restroom users have heard soft expletives coming from my stall when I've realized (too late) that I forgot to grab paper on my way in.

As beautiful as Arequipa is, the city has a major pollution problem, and for the first few months of living here, both David and I had a constant supply of interesting specimens coming out of our nasal cavities. Every time we left the house together, we would run through our checklist of essentials: keys, money, chapstick (it's also very dry here) and TP (for the nose-blowing that was sure to be necessary). Eventually our bodies adapted, and now we can step outside our door sans-TP without risking a drippy emergency.

The crowded bus. Some people stood for the entire 2 1/2 hours!

However... as I mentioned, it's always a good idea to have a stash on hand. Two recent experiences reinforced the wisdom of this. The first was my mortifying roadside potty stop with an audience a few weeks ago on our way home from the beach in a colectivo. The second happened this past weekend when we visited the Colca Canyon (the second deepest canyon in the world, we're told) and took a bus from one end of the canyon to the other. It's only about 30 miles, but the road is bad (as we discovered on our epic bike ride) and the bus stops to pick up people along the way, so the trip takes about 2 1/2 hours. There were more people interested in making the journey than available seats, but not to worry—there's always an aisle to cram into. Smashed next to us was a boy of about 10 who was evidently suffering from a cold or allergies. At first we tried our best to ignore him and look the other way while he dug science experiments out of his nose. I asked David (poor, poor David who had the aisle seat) how he was doing, and he replied completely straight-faced:

"I'm trying not to gag."

Booger Boy is peeking in from the right side of the photo.

When an inch-long booger made its way from the nose to the hand resting on the back of the seat in front of us, that was the last straw. I dug out our stash of TP, and David, acting on pure self-defense instincts, grabbed the toilet paper with one hand and kid's grimy hand with the other, and used the toilet paper to quickly collect the inch-longer and two others. Before the boy could react, the boogers were wrapped in the toilet paper and neatly tucked into the jacket tied around his waist. It took every ounce of my will power not to laugh and further embarass the poor snotty-nosed kid, who somehow managed to wriggle through the packed aisle and find another place to stand away from the weirdo gringos.

Okay, so now that everyone's stomach is churning (including mine), I might as well also mention the trend of Peruvian toilets and sewage systems ill-quipped to handle paper. Most restrooms have signs posted asking you to not flush any paper. And while the stall may not have its own toilet paper dispenser, it's sure to have a large garbage can intended to receive the paper. In most cases, the cans are emptied frequently, but even so, the smell can be intense. On my list of what I'm looking forward to about returning to the States is a sewage system able to handle the flushing of free, readily-accessible toilet paper.