Potty Talk

It just occurred to me that most of you don't have a "squatty potty" in your home.

We do. And that's fairly normal for this part of the world.

I suppose the official name isn't "Squatty Potty," but rather, "Turkish toilet." But, that's not exactly right either as these kinds of toilets can be found in countries all over the eastern part of the world. So for purposes of this post, I'll refer to this kind as the "squatter" and the normal kind (at least to any Americans reading this blog) as the "western toilet."

Here is our squatter. It doesn't flush. It doesn't have water running through it. It's basically just a fancy hole. Many Turks prefer using this type of toilet, and often in public places these are the only type of toilets available.  

As you can see below, our squatter does not currently function as a toilet. We use this room as a utility room, because the only person that finds amusement in using the squatter is Eli. 

 You are unable to see it in that picture, but there is a little faucet near the ground on the right hand side of the room. In a traditional, functioning Turkish toilet, there would be a little pitcher sitting next to the faucet. A person would step into plastic slippers, stand on the sides of the squatter, and when he was finished...ahem...doing his business...he would fill the little pitcher with water and use that, combined with his hand, to clean himself. Yes, it's true. I once read a statistic that the average Turkish household only goes through 7 rolls of toilet paper a year, and most of those are used to dry off hands after hands wipe...you know.  

Now that I've totally grossed you out and caused some of you to never ever want to come to Turkey, I'll make it up to you. Here's a picture of our "western toilet." See, it's not scary.