After 12 days of sleeping outside in Missouri's fall; living, eating, sleeping, and sharing close space with thirty other people; and barely showering with modest sanitation, it was only a matter of time before a stomach bug attacked. The second friday of our course my belly began to churn. I could tell it needed to send toxins out, but still by night everything inside hadn't been able to escape.
To precede this story with a description of our accomodations, we are living extremely modestly. There is a long path that has been cleared: half of the path in the woods and half in a prairie at the crest of a hill. We have all of our tents in the woods on one side of the path, right where the woods and the prairie meet. The path widens near the camping quarters to fit both the cooking quarters--a tent for food storage, two rocket stoves, and a timber frame barn--and the university--the clearing where we pull up strawbales to sit on in a circle for class. At the other end of the path is the compost toilet, about a 100 meters away.
Knowing that the walk to the compost toilet is the last thing I want to come out of my tent to do in the middle of the 30 degree night, I made one last attempt before going to bed, with no success. I fell asleep with a deep rumbling in my stomach and hoped for the best. Several times I awoke with the thought, "Oh, god--I should go to the bathroom", but, naked in a sleeping bag to save body heat and afraid that after fully dressing, putting shoes on, climbing out of my tent, and walking 100 meters my stomach would still not be ready to expell, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Finally, though, it was clear, and as I sat up, it was far beyond clear. I pulled on my sweater, grabbed a flashlight, zipped out of my tent into sandals and made a run for it. I made it no further than fifteen yards when it was clear that I had to find a closer solution, so I darted into the woods across the path (where I thought that no one was sleeping). My stomach had made up its mind after hours of indecision and it had no intention on waiting for my convenience. As I reached a few steps into the trees, I tore down my underwear and squatted to explode full force onto the ground out one end and began dry heaving out the other. My two exit points finally calmed as I squatted--pantsless--in the forest in 28 degree cold under the starlight. I turned on my flashlight and saw my underwear--shit! Literally: there was not just a drizzle but a complete bag full of diarrhea. The explosion must have occured faster than my panties cleared the path of exit, creating a sort of bowl, perfect for diarrhea catchment. Peachy fucking fantastic, I thought. I pulled them off, wiped out the contents on the forest floor, and once back on the path set them down as a marker to find my way back to my poo-spot. Then I waddled--carefully, as to minimize dripage--through the open clearing the rest of the 85 meters to the compost toilet. On my return, I brought the compost toilet yogurt cup filled with sawdust (what we use to cover waste inside the compost toilet as an alternative to flushing fresh water), took a right at the soiled panties, and covered my pile. I then threw the yogurt cup into the path for someone to find in the morning and hopefully return, picked up the offending panties and wrapped them in a piece of cardboard, and ran back into my tent.
Needless to say, in the first morning I did not go down to the pond for morning breathing and meditation practices or do yoga; I did not wake for breakfast, and I stayed in bed for morning bread labor--or service on the land--as well. I did not stay in bed because I felt so terrible; rather I feared that my still queazy stomach would explode again, only this time in the daylight as a broad spectacle for everyone to see. (I am not sure which would have been worse. When I did rise, all that was left stayed in. But now, over a week later, my stomach still has not returned to normalcy.) I finally rose and found that the yogurt cup had been returned to its rightful location at the compost toilet, certainly by a helpful but perplexed class member earlier in the morning. I found a shovel and headed for the woods; then I began the process of detoxifying my panties.
Later, when one of the course teachers realized I had been sick, he said, "Oh, that was you last night? I heard something right near my tent...I have my tent pitched in the woods on the opposite side of the path, away from everyone else's."
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