The Outhouse Memoirs

My very earliest childhood memories are vague. Until I was about four, I remember just blurred snapshots full of saturated color and texture—the crisp coolness of green, green grass beneath my feet, blue skies overhead, feeling a friend's hand in my own as we ran down the packed dirt path towards the roar of the river, slipping on the cold, mossy river rocks, and the splintery feeling of the rough wood of the outhouse seat. I don't know why that stands out in my memory and have no intention of asking Freud about it, but for one reason or another, outhouses play prominent parts in many of my young childhood memories.

The first outhouse of my childhood, I don't remember, but I've seen pictures proving its existence. My parents lived in Machaca when I was born, a tiny village four miles further into the jungle than the end of the dirt road. When they first moved there, they built an outhouse with cahun leaf walls, the same material which thatched the roof of our three-room home. These walls were later replaced with rough-cut lumber, which I remember as being the primary building material for all outhouses until we moved to The States, that magical land of flushing toilets, when I was four.

When I was very young, my mother tried to teach my brother and I a few American bathroom manners, hoping, I think, that our jungle breeding wouldn't be too obvious to our American friends. One lesson she wanted to impress upon us was this: You don't let anyone of the opposite gender see you in the bathroom. We nodded our agreement to Mom's first attempt to teach us this lesson, but a few days later, Mom decided maybe she hadn't made herself completely clear when she overheard this:

Michael: (knocks on outhouse door)
Me (from my perch inside): “It's okay, you can come in. I have my eyes closed.”

For the two years we lived in The States, I have, of course, no outhouse memories, since this was, after all, the land of flushing toilets. I also have no bathroom memories. Life must have been rather dull. But then we returned to Belize—another home, another outhouse.

The home into which we moved was composed of two houses—one a kitchen, the other living and bedrooms—and an outhouse. To reach this outhouse, one had to follow the path all the way around the kitchen, past the guava tree Irina tried to climb when she broke her arm, under the mango tree our parrot, Jo-Jo, used as a bedroom, all the way past the hibiscus, the achote bushes, and various other shrubs, to the edge of the jungle, or the bush, as we called it, where this dark, ramshackle outhouse lurked, hiding spiders, scorpions, and other frightening creatures in its smelly depths. The only light inside came though the cracks in the walls. Bad enough during the daytime, at night, the path to the outhouse could only be traversed with the safety of numbers on one's side, especially after we discovered evidence of a mama tiger and her cubs hunting in the bush behind the outhouse. The main story concerning this outhouse I cannot tell. If I did, you would probably take ill, and I would have to field death threats from various family members, and I'm just not prepared to do that yet. I'll wait until I have a really good publishing offer, and I know I'll have enough money to afford an identity change.

Things started looking up when Daddy salvaged an old guardhouse from the Voice of America broadcasting station he was building, and reincarnated it as a new outhouse. This little building became the spiffiest outhouse in the entire neighborhood; in fact, it was probably the nicest outhouse in the entire district! Made of smooth wood painted white with three—count them—three—windows, which swung open smoothly on hinges, and even when you had to shut the windows during rainy season, light came in around the top, under the eaves of the roof. The ultimately cool feature of this outhouse, though, was the big, bold, “13” stenciled in black above the door. Of course, we never used the word “cool” back then, being very un-cool, and not realizing “cool” could mean anything other than “slightly cold,” but whatever word we used to express that feeling—that 13 was it. To this day, I have no idea why that was cool, but it was. All my siblings who remember this remarkable outhouse recall the definite cool-ness of that black 13. This was also our first “two-holer” outhouse, with a big hole for big people, and a little hole with a built-in step in front for the little folks. As I'm sure you can clearly see, we had arrived at the ultimate in outhouses.

Just because we had a nice outhouse at home, though, didn't mean we always had nice outhouses to use. Most of the back villages we visited had no outhouses at all, just an expanse of bush, with lots of places to hide. The bush wasn’t bad compared to the outhouses in some villages, which usually offered corncobs in lieu of toilet paper, and bush was definitely preferable to the outhouses in town, which were the most terrifying outhouses ever. Punta Gorda was located on the shores of the Caribbean, and the good townsfolk decided to provide public bathroom facilities in the easiest manner possible, locating them right over the ocean. Completely unsanitary, yes, but the good townsfolk had bigger things to worry about, so the dilapidated public bathrooms remained open to torture small children for many years. First, you had to cross a pier, a rickety pier, with no handrails, and gaping holes where boards had rotted out. When you reached the little shacks at the end, things weren't any better. Basically, the outhouse consisted of a half-floor, a half-wall, and then empty space. I always knew I was going to fall over backwards and plunge 15 feet into the ocean and sewage below. Needless to say, we usually didn't have to go to the bathroom when we were in town. Just writing this, I am seized with an uncanny urge to grip the edges of my keyboard tightly, and I find myself holding my breath, hoping I can finish typing this before I fall through.

Back at home, our new outhouse moved with us to a new, two-story home. This time, while it was still close to the bush, the location was much closer to the house, and therefore completely un-scary. I was nine by this time, and thought fear was childish, and, since it was my responsibility to help my younger siblings grow up brave like me, when seven-year-old Irina woke me up at night to go with her to the outhouse, I told her she didn't need me to go with her. She should go by herself. Not being convinced of the wisdom of my attitude, but impressed by my bravado, she would tiptoe out and wake up five-year-old Susie to go with her instead. After we discovered a worn-down plot in the bush behind the outhouse where a burglar had observed us for several weeks before breaking into our home, I did change my tactics, and decided I wasn't too big to accompany a sibling to the outhouse after all—in fact, I was far too small, and they needed to go wake up Daddy instead.

Myron, who has since grown up and is pursuing a career in commercial aviation, was showing a keen interest in airplanes at two and three years old, which led to another outhouse episode in the pages of Yoder history. He was in the outhouse one day when he heard the roar of a harrier approaching. Knowing he had only seconds to see this airplane, he hopped off the little hole and went streaking outside. He saw the plane, but Mom saw the lack of pants, and told him next time, even if there was an airplane, he should pull his pants up before he came out. He took this lesson to heart, and a few weeks later, he came running inside—pants in place—and told Mom there was a “gween snake” in the outhouse! “But,” he assured her, “It's not thewe anymow, 'cause it came in undew the doow and then cwawled up the wall and out the window. I was going to come tell you wight away, but I couldn't, 'cause I had to put my pants on fiwst.”

That was the last outhouse we ever owned. When I was 11, we moved to The States for good, leaving outhouses and tigers and guava trees behind forever. Like I said, we won't tell Freud about this, but I really think I'll go home and paint a big “13” above the door to my bathroom. That would just be cool. Or whatever word we used back then.

On Growing Up and Achieving Independence

We all have those times from our childhood that stand out as distinct turning-points, rites of passage, if you will, into the next stage of childhood, middle childhood, pre-teenhood, middle teen-hood, old—well, you get the idea.

When I was 18, and my dad made me drive the whole way to Ohio by myself (ok, so I was following Uncle Matthew's van, but the responsibility of my car was all mine), I left with trepidation, afraid I wouldn't be able to manage the big evil city interstate stuff on my own. I returned completely exhilarated. That was easy! It's just like driving to school every day, except that it takes all day to do it! I came home from that trip and said “I feel so free! I could honestly go anywhere I want to by myself! I'm not afraid to drive anywhere! I can do anything! Life has no limits!” (The overuse of exclamation points here is intentional, and serves to show my general state of excitement and feelings of maturity.) My mom's response was to sigh, in a motherly way, and say “Oh, this is just what I was afraid would happen. I told Daddy you shouldn't do this.”

But really, this whole independence thing was Mom's idea. When I look back over my childhood, most of the memories that stand out as rites of passage, the times when I realized I could really do all this on my own, were Mom's ideas. Like the time when I was four and Irina was two and we were staying in the trailer close to Grandma Yoder's house during a visit. I woke up in the morning, stumbled out to the kitchen, where I found no mother, but only a note instructing me to wake up Irina, eat some cereal, and then go to Grandma's house, where I would find Mommy. I was the Big Girl in Charge. I could eat breakfast by myself. Life held no limits!

After a few more years, when I was 7 or 8 and Michael was 2 years older, Mom again expanded the limits of my world when she first allowed Michael and I to go to town with no adults. Now I know, by this time, you may be thinking Mom to be an irresponsible person, but given the situation, it made perfect sense. She couldn't go to town. She was sick, or pregnant, or both, or had a small baby, or something that prevented her from going to town. We were living in Belize at this time, and “town” was Punta Gorda, about 13 miles down the gravel highway on the morning bus. Practically everyone in the entire district knew us, so it wasn't like she was sending us out among strangers, and since our road was basically the only road out of town, it really didn't matter which bus we rode coming back because they all passed our house anyway. She equipped us with a list, some money and lots of directions and instructions. “Make sure you get on the bus at noon to come home.” “You can buy some panades for lunch.” “Don't miss the bus to come home.” “Stay around the middle of town.” “You need to get on the bus early and wait, to make sure it doesn't leave without you.” “Tell the bus driver you're going to ride back with him so he won't leave without you.” “Make sure you don't miss the bus to come home.” Michael, being the oldest and most mature, put the money in his wallet, while I carried my coxdal—a brightly colored woven Mayan handbag, with my little purse inside, containing my life savings of probably about five Belizean dollars, though I don't remember the exact amount.
As we stood at the end of our lane, watching eagerly down the road for the cloud of dust that heralded the coming of the bus, I tried to look casual, like I did this every day. We hailed the bus, climbed aboard and headed out for a day on our own.

I remember wandering around town that morning, after we had purchased everything on Mom's list, my flip-flops beating out a rhythm on the hot, rough streets, feeling so grown up and independent. I was in town without parents! I could do anything! We had time to kill before the bus left, so we headed to the cobenaros' stands in the middle of town. These peddlers from Guatamala sold nearly anything a 7 year old could desire: combs, little pocket mirrors, hair grease, little tin bowls, brightly colored hair accessories, new slippers, toys. I hardly ever bought anything here, unless I needed a birthday present for a sibling, because that would involve spending my money, which was something I didn't do, because then I wouldn't have it anymore. But that didn't keep me from wandering among the stalls, examining treasures, and trying to think of ways of getting things that involved me still keeping all of my money. This day at the cobenaros, I was drawn to a display of watches. One in particular caught my eye. It was a beautiful gold watch, one that had the little hands on the front that went around instead of a digital display. It had a sparkly face and a narrow gold wristband, and I thought it was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. I asked the cobenaro how much it cost. “Ten dollars,” he said. I knew that just meant the starting price was ten and he would actually sell it for far less if one knew how to bargain well. I did know how to bargain well—I liked to keep my money, as I mentioned before—but I also know that I had no need for such a pretty, extravagant watch, no matter how grown-up I was. (This was also in the days when I thought owning more than one pair of shoes was completely ridiculous. I've matured even more since then, but that's another story.) Michael, however, started bargaining for the watch. This puzzled me greatly, since I didn't know why he would want a beautiful gold watch. Nobody's birthday was coming up. He bargained the guy down to a mere fraction of the originally named price, and then—he purchased the watch. I was an inquisitive, nosy child, so I asked him why he was buying the watch, but he wouldn't tell me. It was nearly noon by then, so we stopped the panade lady on the street and bought several of her delicious fried panades, stuffed with minced fish or refried beans, and holding the newsprint wrapping carefully so the spicy cabbage and habanero pepper topping wouldn't fall onto the street, we made our way to the park, where all the buses were lined up waiting to go home. On the way home, Michael handed me that beautiful watch and said “Here, this is for you.” I was shocked. For me? It wasn't my birthday, or Christmas, or anything else that deserved presents. I was completely speechless, which even at seven, was a remarkable thing for me. That watch was my most treasured possession for years to come, even after the gold wore off, and the hands stopped turning. When I wore it, I felt beautiful, loved, and all grown up. I had gone to town without my parents! Life had no limits!

Too late did my mother realize that allowing me to experience life without limits at four, and at seven, would lead to drives across the country at 18 and moves to the other side of the world a few years later. Mothers, take heed to this tale. Never give your children the opportunity to feel all grown up, or someday they actually will be all grown up, and leave, and go places without you. Only you can prevent forest fires—er, I mean independent children. Go now and do your duty.