The Great Return to Vanuatu

Bae mi stap long Vanautu long 1 week! Bae mi stap long 5 wiks mo mifela makem research long malaria mo research long stress blong bel blong bigfela Cyclone Pam.

Yu no toktok Bislama?

I'm going to Vanuatu next week! I will be there for 5 weeks with my colleagues, researching malaria (cross your fingers for no outbreak!) and prenatal stress as a result of Cyclone Pam.

Mi got wan bigfela flight long next wiks!

I'd like to talk about pooping

After you eat all the delicious (real) Chinese food while in China, you will probably feel the need to sit some more. On the toilet that is.

Only, in China, you often don't sit to do your business. You squat.

I may not have discussed toilets while we were in Vanuatu, but while there, the most common form of toilet was what was known as a 'bush toilet'; you might also call it a hole in the ground with some walls and a roof. (Not always true, some bush toilets had a wooden box seat built in.) Basically it was a composting outhouse built with the purpose of isolating human waste to reduce disease incidence.

Chinese toilets were not bush toilets though. They were charming porcelain commodes built right into the floor, with areas to put your feet, instead of a seat to rest your bum. AND, they flushed. Bush toilets do not flush. We are clearly talking about sophisticated toilets, here.

In addition to requiring users to squat, Chinese toilets, like Vanuatu bush toilets, often come without toilet paper. Some public bathrooms did have a big roll at the entrance to grab some before you went into the stall, but this was not universal, and I often found that the roll was empty when I checked it anyway. So I got used to carrying around a packet of tissues with me. (This packet served double duty as most restaurants did not provide napkins, or you needed to pay extra for napkins. Definitely an important thing to remember.) Interestingly, I also discovered that once you use the toilet tissue, you do not flush it, but you throw it in the waste basket that is often right next to the toilet. Could the plumbing system not handle it? Was this not a habit that's been picked up yet? I don't know. But when in Beijing…

Hong Kong was a bit mixed in the toilet department, for those who are wondering. Generally, I found them to have seat toilets, but some public places also had squat toilets available. They were distinguished by signs on the outside of the stall. In some of the seat stalls, there were signs saying "Please do not squat on the toilet seats". (Sorry, didn't get a picture of those signs!)

This sign means "squat".

This sign means "sit".

For those who may have been interested in traveling to China, but have found themselves rather put off by the idea of having to squat to eliminate waste, I will note that I mostly experienced squat toilets in public bathrooms and that every hotel I stayed at had standard seat toilets, and toilet tissue was included.

But you should really try squatting. It's quite good for the colon.

My First Former Soviet Nations

We had the opportunity to visit Tallinn, Estonia, and Riga, Latvia, this trip. My first former Soviet Union nations! (Interestingly, this was my partner's first time in continental Europe, despite living in Sweden for the last two years. So, lots of firsts!)

Here are some of the things I observed while in the Baltic States:

- In Tallinn and Riga, cars are parked up on the sidewalk, rather than along the sidewalk. This largely seems to be because there are few parking spots on the road along the sidewalk, especially on side and smaller streets. First, I thought I was just seeing some bad parkers, then I realized several people were parked at roughly the same angle, 2-3 wheels up on the curb. That must be on purpose.

- Rock is not frequently used on ice and snow covered sidewalks. In Helsinki and Stockholm, the sidewalks are covered with ground rock, in much the same way as we cover our sidewalks in salt in the US. (Great for maintaining grip with the ground, not so great when you are wheeling a suitcase, by the way.) I noticed pretty quickly in Tallinn that this was not the case. I think due in part to the location of our hotel in Tallinn (a more residential area near the university), the sidewalks also were not well shoveled, which made for some interesting walking adventures. In contrast, our hostel in Riga was on a main road and, while I saw very little rock spread, the sidewalks were well shoveled (we watched it done after seeing about an inch of snow fall one afternoon). This is in no way meant to malign Tallinn; in the city's defense, the cobblestoned streets and sidewalks of the Old Town were immaculate!

- Polyglots abound. Apparently, it is common for people to speak 2-3 languages fluently in both Estonia and Latvia; one of the guides at a museum we went to had 4 or 5 language flags on his name tag, and I heard him speaking at least 3 of those. (Note that I make this observation with extreme jealousy.) And I mean people really were functionally fluent in these languages—we had very little difficulty communicating and finding our way around when we were almost exclusively using English.

Signs are also in several of these languages. For example, the "Do Not Disturb" hang tag at our hotel in Tallinn was in Estonian, Russian, English, Finnish, and German. Sometimes Swedish is thrown in there. (And, obviously, in Latvia, they were using Latvian instead of Estonian.) I was impressed when we noticed that Helsinki had all road signs in Finnish, Swedish, and either Russian or English, but that was nothing to the Baltics. This abundance of languages is due to the history of the area being conquered time after time; they are just in a really convenient place for land grabs, it seems. (Perhaps I will make a post on all the area's interesting history I learned on the trip; until then, Wikipedia will be able to fill you in!)

- In Riga, Latvia, toilet tissue is not flushed, but thrown in the trash barrel next to the toilet. The only other place I have seen this is in China. (I have another post about China toilets in the works!)