Bathrooms and nightclubs...

I must warn you, there will be explicit bathroom talk in this blogpost.  Here’s the thing, when you are in a new place, it’s always nice to know where the bathroom is, and understand how to use it.  So in case anyone reading this blog is planning to come to Venezuela, pay particular attention.  Bathrooms here are not like in the US, and some things require explanation.

Here’s the first thing I don’t understand.  Nobody keeps toilet paper anywhere near the toilet.  For example, at the university, there are like 8 stalls in the bathroom, but only two toilet paper dispensers outside of the stalls.  So you must predict how much toilet paper you plan to use and bring it in with you.  This is true in public and private places.  For example, in our house, the toilet paper is stored in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror above the sink.  It took me a while to figure out where it was, wondering if this was a repeat of East Africa, where nobody used toilet paper.  I don’t understand why people do this.  There are empty toilet paper dispensers in every bathroom stall, and next to every toilet, but the toilet paper is always kept elsewhere.  It’s almost as if people did not understand what those little attachments on the wall are for, but they put them in each bathroom anyways.  I asked my host mom one day why she keeps it behind the mirror, and she said that people steal the toilet paper when she leaves it next to the toilet.  This makes no sense to me, given that people could just as easily steal it from the medicine cabinet, because we all know that that is where it resides. 

There are other important differences in bathrooms here.  For example, once you find the toilet paper, it is very important to remember that you cannot put it in the toilet.  The plumbing here cannot handle toilet paper, so you must throw it in the trashcan next to the toilet.  I have been pretty good about remembering to do this— but 22 years of throwing toilet paper into the toilet creates a pretty engrained habit, so I occasionally forget.  Another major difference, you often must flip several switches, rotate a lever in the other room, open a faucet and wait 10 minutes before you will be able to use a bathroom.  For example, in our shower at home, there is a switch on the wall, and one on the showerhead that apparently regulate water temperature. As far as I can tell, though, the water is always the same tepid temperature, regardless of the switches.  I have showered in other places where you must first release the water from a large tank on the roof by climbing on the roof, and must align a series of levers before water will flow into the system so you can enjoy your tepid shower.  Other differences, you must often pay to use public bathrooms in populated places, like bus terminals or malls, and you must sometimes flush toilets with buckets of water. If you are very tall, you must also be aware that bathrooms are made for people who are roughly 5’ 2” here.  For example, when I stand up in a bathroom stall, the walls are usually only up to about my shoulders.  You may have to scrunch under showers, or lean down towards sinks, if you are not comfortable looking someone in the face while you button your pants up.

I am used to drinking a lot of water during the day—several Nalgene bottles at least.  This means that every couple hours I have to pee.  This seems healthy to me—keep your system cleansed, stay hydrated, even if it means that you will have to find a bathroom… but people here don’t EVER go to the bathroom!  My host mom told me that she absolutely does not use public bathrooms.  I don’t understand how she does this.  When we go out for the entire day, she doesn’t pee that day, she waits until we come home.  This just seems like it must be a very unhealthy habit, and one that I’m not sure I could ever pick up.

My favorite bathroom that I have seen so far in this country, though, was one that I saw this weekend.  We went out to a night club/bar, where there was a lot of dancing.  The bathrooms were adjacent to the dance floor, so that one had to walk through the dancing people to arrive at the bathroom.  The women’s bathroom was fine, dirty, but as expected.  But the men’s bathroom was hilarious.  The door to the bathroom had no hinges, which meant that on occasion, while someone was inside using the bathroom, the door would fall, crashing onto the dance floor with a loud bang, causing an uproar of laughter in the crowd and revealing the person inside.  At several points during the night, the door was just removed, men still using the bathroom while people danced three feet away. Inevitably someone would replace the door again, and when you heard the loud bang, you knew that it was just the bathroom door slamming onto the dance floor.

We had several visitors in our house this weekend—Zach, another Fulbrighter from the next city over came to visit, and Antonio—the son that we visited in Maracaibo last weekend was here as well.  We went out Friday and Saturday nights (my first experiences going out here), and the main thing that I took away from the experience is that I now understand just HOW important it is here that one wear sparkly shoes. (Note: I took these shoe pictures in a shoe store here, I still haven't gotten any of my own)

On Friday night, we went out to a bar on the main drag.  When we got to the bar, we had two choices of drinks, Blue and Green.  These colors refer to the colors of the bottles of the only beer that you can buy here, the blue being the light version of an already bad and watered-down beer.  I have seen 3 types of beer in this country, and they all taste about the same, with slightly different amounts of carbonation.  We had a couple beers at that bar, listening to Guns and Roses and “What if God was one of us” playing in the background.  Afterwards, we went upstairs to another rooftop bar, where there was a computer screen projected onto a large screen showing music videos.  We sat for a few minutes, enjoying the breeze, with our “Blues” in hand, when the electricity went out.  Nobody really reacted when it went out, we all just sat there, finished our beers, and left.  We took a cab to the other side of town, where we went to a place where people were dancing!  Everyone here looks like a professional dancer to me—their hips move in perfect synchrony, in patterns I can’t even follow with my eyes, their faces devoid of any expression, not entirely clear if they are having fun, their bodies never missing a beat of music.  A sketchy looking young man waved his hand to come over and dance.  I pretended I didn’t see…  and I kept talking with Zach and Yervio. 

As I watched the dancers, someone made a surprised face at me.  I ignored him too, not wanting any strangers to approach me.  But when I looked up again, he was still staring, still making faces.  OH! I realized, it’s one of the students I have been tutoring.  So he invited me to meet his friends, and to dance.  He taught me to Merengue, slowly, only basic steps, for one, two, three songs.  Everyone here knows how to dance, and he knew exactly how to lead me so I could follow him.  It was really fun.  We went home at about 1:00, knowing that tomorrow we were going to go out again.

The next day was relaxed, we hung out at home, Zach and I walked around the city a bit, we watched a movie, and decided we should take the fam out for pizza and then go to the disco.  So we walked to the pizza place, sat around and ate the biggest pizza I have ever seen (bacon and sweet corn, very intriguing).  We were picked up by a man named Sami, who took us to a strange unmarked building.  After speaking with the bodyguard, the doors to the building opened to reveal a very well lit, swanky casino.  Someone immediately brought us enormous glasses of really bad watered down whisky, and we sat watching a live band (who were really good and have some pre-determined choreography).  We mostly just sat, trying to pour as much of our drinks into ashtrays as we could.  Zach hid his drink between slot machines, I eventually spit my gum into mine, hoping no one would notice when I ditched it.  From across the room we spotted one of the men who lives in our house—the one who I have never really met.  I asked Yervio his name, to which he just shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I don’t like him.”  This struck me as odd, to not know the name of someone who has been living in your house for several years.  But I blew it off. None of us actually played any slot machines; we just took lots of pictures and enjoyed the music.

After we left the casino, we went straight to another bar/dance club.  This place was even higher class, we found out, when the bouncer refused to let Zach and I in because we were wearing sandals.  He talked to the manager, we told him that this is the way we dress in our country, that we didn’t have any sparkly shoes.  Once we got in, we sat some more, Antonio twirled me around and around a bit, and before we knew it, it was 3 o’clock.  Then came the big drama of the evening.  By 3 o’clock, Zach and I really just wanted to go home.  We had been out since 6 doing essentially nothing.  So Zach asked for the bill, to my delight, and to the surprise of my host brothers.  “It’s early,” they said, “we are going to stay 2 more hours and then the party starts.”  HOLD UP.  2 hours until the party STARTS?! No no no no…. we have got to get out of here.  So we insisted, begged, pleaded, and finally our wish was granted.  A taxi was on its way.  About 3-4 beers later, one showed up.  And we were on our way home.  We were told to think twice if we go out in a big city, because we might not be brought home until 9 or 10 in the morning.  Dear lord, I don’t think I can handle this place. Haha.  I’m fine with being the square gringa for my time here… that might even be the best plan. J

Well, I must go plan lessons for this week.  My host uncle says hello to everyone!