How do you say, "How the hell do I poop in there!" in Turkish?

    It has been speculated that children that had difficult toilet training or some sort of severe trauma while toilet training turn out to have deep emotional problems, like psychopath/sociopath problems. With that being said I am surprised that there is one single sane person in the whole nation of Turkey! While recently talking with a friend that is considering the Peace Corps, she said that there was a chance that she would be sent to Eastern Europe, and of course the conversation turned to the most difficult aspect of living Turkey for an American. Turkish toilets!

 

     You might have heard the phrase, “You wouldn’t know you’re a** from a whole in the ground.” It wasn’t until I went to Turkey that I realized that two actually do go together.  Because that is what a Turkish toilet is, a hole in the floor surrounded by tile and with hose or a waterspout with a bucket. I have to say though that while your odds of encountering a Turkish toilet in Turkey are high, you will encounter more western toilets. The host family that I lived with had a very western bathroom; in fact it was nicer than some bathrooms I have seen in Alabama. When you were out in public you ran a higher chance of having to use a Turkish toilet. TOMER the language school that I attended in Ankara had both western toilets but it also had one Turkish toilet. If I had to guess perhaps that there are individuals of an older generation that prefers them. At the Ankara bus station, which had a pay toilet there was only one western toilet and it was reserved for the handicapped. I almost ask my money back.

 

     The biggest obstacle, at least for me in regards to the Turkish toilet is that the surrounding floor was always wet. I had never encountered a Turkish toilet at a private residence, but this is true for all the public ones I found.  To this day I am still confused as to how you either pull your pants down enough or take them off to do your business without getting them soaked! I will ask a person point blank their views on religion, politics and money but when it comes to thick kind of stuff I turn into a genteel southerner who has no idea how to broach such a subject. In the end I learned to know where the western bathrooms were, and if I didn’t then I would just limit what I would eat drink, especially eat!