“Meghan, I’ve got the greatest story to tell you.”

This story’s a gross one, so skip it if you’re squeamish.

I totally shit myself today.

There are times in life when, man and woman alike, have the need to pass, how you say, a certain gas, that is, of the methane variety. Being in Kazakhstan and walking with my language mates Alex and Meghan, we were walking to the bus stop for a trip to Panfilova. The need overtakes me, and I figure, “Hey, it doesn’t smell like roses here anyway,” and so I decide to let it fly.

That’s when I got a little bit more than I was asking for, if you know what I mean.

So imagine the scene, dear reader, of my waddling down the dusty, dirt filled street, hustling and bustling with Kazakahstani life, cows and cars sharing the same road. Noisy, dirty, hot, windy. And me waddling with a serious case of mud butt.

Adapting to local foods is one of the biggest hurdles a peace corps volunteer often has to face – despite all of our efforts to remain clean, it’s just impossible to make sure everything has been kept to the standards of American ‘clean’ – I can’t always ask my hosts to bring the fruit they picked and tell them to wash it AGAIN in my distilled water, right? So my passings as of late hasn’t been of the best consistency, and what happened today seems to be a normal part of adapting to the food.

All I could do was laugh about it, though – I walk up to Meghan, and I say:

”Meghan, I’ve got the best story to tell you.”
”What?”
”I just totally shit myself,” I said, laughing hysterically.

Meghan’s look was fabulous – a mix of horror and hilarity in one – she hands me some toilet paper, and we go looking for a toilet.

No such luck.

So then the decision is made to simply clean up behind the bus stop, which is filled with trash and quite bushy and rather private (Meghan mentioned earlier that she had seen people taking craps right in the middle of the field anyway).

Again, I crack up at the sheer absurdity of the situation, and waddle over behind the bus stop. As I prepare to drop trow, oh boy, here comes our bus. So much for that. So we rode the bus to school, and once there, I waddled up the flight of stairs to the local squat toilet and cleaned myself up there.

They say part of keeping your sanity here is being able to have a sense of humor about everything – in many ways, I saw that applying to my situation today. So I pooped my pants, so what? It’s happened to other people, and I’m adapting to the local food. Getting a horrified look on my face and crying about it wouldn’t really solve the situation, so all I could do was step back and laugh about how funny the whole thing was.

Don’t be fooled though, when I got home I took the longest, hottest banya I’ve ever taken since I’ve gotten here.