shit.

note: In the spirit of CLTS, I have used profanity on purpose.

Because it’s my last week in the village, we’ve been staying up a little later than usual to chat. Last night might have been the latest night yet.

I think it was about 8:30 and I was ready for bed so I said my goodnights and headed to my room. I did what I usually do; I grabbed some toilet paper and my cell phone (functioning as a flashlight) and walked out to the latrine hoping that I don’t step on a toad.

I got to the chimbudzi (latrine in Chichewa), turned on my phone light, inspected all the corners for snakes or other various Malawian wildlife and then carried on my way. I stood up and next thing you know, the cell phone slipped out of my hand. I did a clumsy juggle from one hand to the next and watched it fall to the ground and bounce right into the hole. It landed at the bottom of the latrine with a smack.

I stared down at my phone, on the pile of shit and maggots, saw it staring at me and watched the interface light turn off. I grabbed my head, pulled my hair, stared down at the phone and laughed harder than you can even imagine.

I walked to the house laughing out of complete disbelief. All summer I’ve been terrified of dropping something in that hole, and of all things to drop, I dropped my connection to the outside world. I basically watched my family and friends fall onto a pile of shit. So I walk into the house laughing hysterically and Pearson, still sitting in the eating room, and Monica, coming out of the bedroom wearing only a bra and a skirt (preparing to go to bed), looked at me wanting to know what on earth was going on. I said “Pearson, I dropped my cell phone in the latrine”. Immediately Monica starts laughing, I’m already laughing, and Pearson looks at me seriously for a second and then I watched an embarrassing laugh sneak onto his face.

After the laughing faded out (obviously not completely, the laughter continued for the next hour and a half) Pearson grabbed a couple plastic bags and put his hands into them. Monica got him some elastic bands and he put them around his wrists, securing the plastic bags against his skin. I couldn’t believe he was going to try to save it, especially in the dark. The three of us were crowded at the door eager to see the phone and, looking like he had two balloons on his hands, Pearson turned to me and smiled. More laughing. More laughing.

We all walked out to the latrine together with Pearson’s cell phone as our light. We ran out of batteries in my headlamp a couple days ago, so Monica walked over to the neighbours, told them what happened and asked to borrow their flashlight. Pearson and I waited in the latrine for her to come back and we could hear the neighbours laughing.

She came back and Pearson took charge with the flashlight. You would never believe how the three of us crowded around that hole hoping to see the cell phone sitting at the top. Unfortunately, by the time we got out there, the cell phone had sunk to the bottom of the latrine. Probably 8 feet below the hole.

Pearson then told Monica to go and get a cup from the house. We step outside the latrine and stand there waiting for Monica and Pearson starts says “Katie, you are too young.” More laughing. More laughing.

Monica came back and then Pearson went and got two long branches and another elastic band. We all went back into the latrine and then he took one stick and put it down the hole. I was still laughing, but by now I think the tone switched over to serious because, well, Pearson was digging through shit to find my phone. He poked around for at least 10 minutes and then turned and fashioned himself a scoop by attaching the cup to the end of the other stick with the elastic band. I told him that I think we should give up because it’s late and we can’t see anything but he said “I see it”. I couldn’t believe it. More laughing.

So he took the scoop and put it down the hole and continued digging. The whole time Monica stood above him and held the flashlight. Pearson looked like he was performing dental surgery and Monica was wearing only a chitenge (wrapped around her in a towel kind of way which is totally scandalous in Malawi). I was sitting in the corner, hugging my knees and staying out of the way. I was so thankful this didn’t happen at the beginning of my placement. I was seriously witnessing a candid and memorable moment in their marriage.

I was ready to give up because I convinced myself that the phone wouldn’t work anyways, and then Pearson said “Let’s go” and took the cup out of the latrine with the cell phone in it. How he did it, I’ll never know.

He told me and Monica to gather some sand and we made a pile. He spilled the phone and the rest of the cups contents into the pile of sand and rubbed it around for about 30 seconds. Then he started kicking my phone in the sand and gave it quite the beating. At some point during the royal sand treatment, he pressed something and the phone lit up. It actually worked. I howled at this point. Howled with laughter. Not at all aware that the neighbours were asleep. But seriously man, this is one of the funniest situations I have ever been in.

So the phone works. He then spent the next 15-20 minutes washing the phone with various cobs of husked maize. He would dip the cob into a cup of water and scrub. This was the perfect sponge because it was rough enough to scrape the crevices and disposable enough to wash shit off of a phone. While he was doing this, I said “Pearson, when I leave, you can have my phone.” This made him very happy.

The phone was pretty much clean so we went into the house and Pearson took off the cap on the back to see if the SIM card and battery were in danger of getting wet. They were totally fine. Aside from the maggot crawling on the SIM card, it was dry and the phone was functioning. We gave it one last wipe with an old sock and I took the phone into my room to recover.

This morning, after gently washing it one more time it’s as good as new.

Lesson learned: don’t use your cell phone as your latrine light. Also, Pearson and Monica rock.

Love kate