How To Pee in the Woods (for Women)

I have never before been in a place where peeing in a toilet is regarded as abnormal behavior, even frowned upon. But Dancing Rabbit is really not like any other place I have ever been. In fact, the whole bathroom situation at this ecovillage in northeastern Missouri requires a bit of an orientation. DR uses a composting toilet system based on the Humanure Handbook. As a visitor, this is the first thing you learn when arriving here.

Basically, human waste is collected in buckets that sit under regular, unassuming toilet lids. After you do your business, you cover it with sawdust from the bucket that sits next to the toilet. The system is easy to use, and in general it doesn't smell.



When the bucket is full, it is collected in another location and a new bucket becomes its replacement. When all the buckets are full, they are taken to a compost pile, where the waste inside is covered with straw and left to compost for two years. After that time, the compost is completely innocuous and can be used as fertilizer. (Due to the gross-out factor, it isn't used on crops for human consumption, though I have been told that to do so would be perfectly safe.)

Which brings me to the peeing. Those buckets are heavy. And pee makes them heavier. And smellier. And urine is actually totally clean as far as water contamination goes. For these reasons, as well as for convenience, people here prefer to pee outdoors. "You're welcome to pee in the composting toilets, but honestly most people here just go outside. As long as it's not on the paths, it's fine," my visitor liaison told me on my first morning here.

"You know," another DR member piped in, "a lot of women when they first get here are a little squeamish about peeing outside. If you want, I can show you some techniques."

How could I refuse such an offer?

What follows is an outdoor peeing primer with techniques modeled by Liat, DR's foremost expert on female urination. (Okay, I made that last part up, but it sounds cool, right?)

The Basic Squat



This technique is probably the best for beginners. It's a good idea to pull your pants forward and to watch out for your shoes. Liat warned me, however, that the Squat is not advisable during high tick season, especially when peeing in tall grass.

The One-Cheek Sneak



A variation on the Squat, this technique involves shifting your weight to one butt cheek for greater comfort. It's especially important here to watch your shoes.

The Lean



Reduces exposure during tick season. Also, I'm told, can be used in a man's urinal.

The Gender Bender

This technique requires the use of a tool, unless you happen to have special skills (which apparently some women do).



Using either a commercial tool (pictured) or a funnel with a hose on the end, a woman can stand and pee like a man.

The Skirt Squirt



This technique only works if you're naked or wearing a skirt. Imagine Liat wearing a skirt in this picture (this is a G-rated blog, okay?), and you'll get the idea.

The Karate Kid



Only for the truly adventurous, this technique is best practiced in the buff. Shown here in both the bent-leg and full-extension variations.

3 days at DR

Today will be my third full day at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. I arrived on Monday night totally strung out after my two-day train adventure. Luckily, I was given a space in the Common House to sleep, so I didn't have to attempt putting up my tent in the dark and in a complete stupor. They put me in the children's play room, where I arranged my camping mattress on top of a gymnastics mat and promptly passed out.

When I woke up, the Common House was bustling with activity. In the kitchen, people were preparing a breakfast for the visitors. Most people who live here do not have kitchens in their houses (though some do), so most people belong to a food co-op. There are at least 3 food co-ops that I have heard of so far. The co-ops purchase food together and share the responsibility of cooking meals for one another. The system, both in terms of its operation and in terms of the kind of food that is served, is stunningly similar to the co-op system in which I participated during college. Lots of whole grains, rice, beans, and vegetables. No meat, very little dairy.

That morning we took a tour around the property, looking at all that has been built here in the 11 years DR has been in existence. Members here have an agreement that they will only build with reclaimed or sustainably harvested materials, so homes are built out of discarded lumber and tin roofing from old barns, straw bales, bagged earth, cob (a mixture of sand, clay, and straw), and other natural materials. A couple of people live in a converted grain bin, and one person lives in a school bus. The school bus is my favorite dwelling I have seen so far.



There are solar panels everywhere. Most homes have them because DR is completely off the grid. As in, no electricity from outside. They use propane or wood-burning stoves to cook; the latter is more common in the winter when heating is also an issue.



My own home for the next three weeks is not nearly as cool as the school bus, but it will do. The nights are cool, and the crickets and cicadas are loud but soothing.



So far, thankfully, I haven't been killed by bugs - just a few mosquito bites here and there. I haven't seen a tick yet, and I've been told that high tick season is over. However, I have been told to watch out for what looks like a clump of dirt that starts crawling up your leg. Apparently seed ticks, the larval form of ticks, are common this time of year. Thousands of them will be in one spot in the grass, and if you step in it, they all cling on and start moving up your body in search of tender flesh. Apparently, the only way to get rid of them is to take a piece of duct tape and collect them like dog hair. Luckily, seed ticks can't carry diseases.

Train Travel

I am traveling by train from Philadelphia to southwestern Illinois, to a small town called Quincy. From Quincy, I will travel to the even smaller town of Rutledge in northeastern Missouri. Outside of Rutledge is Dancing Rabbit Eco-village, where I will be spending the next three weeks. I don’t know what to expect of my time at DR, but for now I am enjoying traveling by train. Crossing the country by train is extraordinarily inefficient. A trip that would take less than 3 hours on a plane takes an entire 24-hour day on a train. We stop everywhere. We travel to Chicago by way of every small town in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana. But while a plane ticket for this trip would likely cost several hundred dollars, my train ticket cost less than one hundred. And for that small sum, I am granted an entire day to read, write, listen to old episodes of This American Life and conjecture about my fellow passengers.

Who rides trains these days?, you may be wondering. I can answer this question. Elderly black ladies. They are the most well-represented demographic on Amtrak's Cardinal 51. Apart from them, there are families with young kids who run back and forth from the dining car. There are people who are either afraid of or opposed to airplanes. And there are people such as myself, who have lots of time and not a lot of money. I may be in the minority on this point, but I am proud to be a person with more time than money. On the train, I feel triumphant. How lucky I am, I think, to be able to afford to take my time.

I wonder about my fellow passengers. Are they also people who value time more than they value money? Or is train travel an unwanted inconvenience to them? Maybe, like me, they find trains romantic. The guy across the aisle from me certainly seems to. He is bragging to his seatmate about the “smokin’ hot” girl he met on the train last time he took this trip.

Apart from the luxurious expanse of time and the people-watching opportunities, there are a few other things I love about trains, things that make them far superior to planes in my opinion. First, no security. No annoying metal detectors. No regulations on liquids. No useless questions from bored airline personnel about who packed your bags. Second, no checked bags and plenty of overhead storage space. Third, electrical outlets in every seat. I am surrounded by a small army of electronics, all waiting their turn to be charged.

In about 20 hours I should be reaching Chicago. In another 20 I'll be at Dancing Rabbit.

Finding Local Flavor in the Japanese Countryside

The strangest thing I have ever seen on television involved three men dressed as insects jumping on pogo sticks, two women in fairy costumes, and a giant bowl of fermented soybeans. This is Japanese television, and it is often so weird as to almost defy description.

In this particular show, the three insect men were standing in a fake forest in front of a fake tree stump. (This, by the way, is a show intended for adults.) By turns, each man mounted a pogo stick and attempted to hop up onto the stump without falling. The height of the stump was raised after each round.

Each time one of them failed to jump up on the giant stump, two attractive women in fairy costumes would run out from the wings, one holding a long glass tube and the other holding a bowl of natto, a traditional food made from fermented soybeans.

The two fairy women would attack the insect man who had just fallen from the stump and pin him to the ground. The woman holding the bowl of natto would rapidly consume as much of it as she could, and then the other woman would hold the glass tube up to the first woman’s mouth so she could burp into it and blow down the tube directly into the fallen contestant’s face. He would commence rolling around on the ground, writhing in pain over the awful stench of her natto-breath.

The Japanese have a conflicted relationship with natto – some people love it and some hate it, but it is thoroughly Japanese. As a foreigner, people are impressed if you say you’ve tried it, flabbergasted if you claim to like it. Natto (or snot-o as some expats like to call it) is strong, sticky, and odoriferous. After seeing it on television, I knew I had to try it.

I was traveling with my brother, a photographer who lives outside of Tokyo, and we had made arrangements to spend several days outside the city, exploring the Japanese countryside and staying in a traditional inn.

We arrived at the Fujioto Guesthouse, in a small town called Tsumago, just before dinner time. We met our host, Franco, took a quick tour of the guesthouse, and sat down around a low table, hungry from a day of travel and salivating in anticipation.

Dinner consisted of one local delicacy after another - whole boiled trout, caught in one of the streams near Tsumago, a plate of boiled bee larvae, which Franco referred to as “baby bees” and claimed would make us more fertile, horse meat sashimi - that’s, ahem, raw horse meat, and for the main course, local beef and vegetables in a spicy mustard sauce, which we cooked ourselves atop a leaf from Franco’s garden suspended over a small flame. Full to bursting, we waddled upstairs, put on the traditional yukata (robes) Franco had laid out for us, sprawled across the futon beds, and promptly fell asleep.

The next morning at breakfast, I spied my chance. “Franco,” I asked, “do you have any natto?” Natto is typically eaten with rice as a breakfast food. Franco looked at me like I was completely out of my mind. “You won’t like it,” he said. He pinched his nose and waved his hand under it.

“I want to try it anyway,” I said. Franco shrugged. He brought back a bowl filled to the brim with a beige substance. I dipped into it and brought to my mouth, long strings of natto stretching from the bowl to my chopsticks. It tasted yeasty but not terrible. In fact, it didn’t taste nearly as bad as it felt.

Imagine the world’s stickiest peanut butter. Then imagine that that peanut butter has been sitting around for quite some time, marinating in Brewer’s yeast and acquiring the consistency of rubber cement, and you have a pretty good idea of what natto is like. I probably won’t be eating natto again any time soon, nor bee larvae or horse meat for that matter. But I will jump at the chance to go back to Japan.

Decision-making

What do you do when a man you have known for barely six weeks offers to buy you a plane ticket to join him on a trip to Europe? No, this is not a trick question. You say Yes, you dummy. So what if you don’t know him that well yet? You’ll get to know him over espressos in a sidewalk café. You’ll stroll the streets of Paris, you’ll make out in the park like a couple of European teenagers. In Brussels, you’ll drink delicious Belgian ales, snack on pommes frites and sample the most decadent chocolate you have ever tasted in your life. You’ll fall in love with the bicycle culture in Holland and wonder why the US is so backward in comparison. You’ll ride a granny bike through the streets together Dutch style (i.e. the girl sitting side-saddle on the rack while the boy pedals), marveling at the diversity of cyclists with whom you share these fantastic bike paths – old ladies, young kids, women in heels with scarves streaming behind them. You’ll cruise the canals of Amsterdam in a wooden boat. You’ll practically live on aged Gouda, waffles, licorice, and beer. Most importantly, you’ll try not to talk about the fact that you have applied for the Peace Corps and are interviewing the week you get back.

A good friend from college used to say he had three criteria for making any decision:

1. Will it make my life more exciting?
2. Will it make my life more beautiful?
3. Is it a little bit crazy?

This one gets yeses across the board.

Las Cañadas Ecovillage, Mexico

I recently came back from a trip to Las Cañadas Ecovillage in Mexico, where I spent a week working in the fields and forests of the village, washing my hands and my dishes with captured rainwater, using composting toilets, and eating food grown within a 10 minute walk of where I slept at night. My traveling companions were the other members of a work crew that had come to Las Cañadas to learn how this piece of land went from being a cloud forest to a cattle ranch, and how it is slowly becoming a cloud forest again.

During the days we worked in the fields with Don Adán, a toothless, sun-worn campesino with twinkling eyes and a ready laugh. I wondered how we must have appeared to him, this group of relatively affluent North Americans who traveled to southern Mexico to work with our hands and our bodies in the hot sun. What did Don Adán make of our eagerness to spread sheep manure compost over a field of corn and beans? We sang as we shoveled, and I thought about Don Adán and me, about the nature of work, and about what my college educations – both of them – have prepared me for in life.

My trip pulled into very sharp focus a question that has been on my mind in one form or another for the whole of this past year.

How shall I live?

It is a very simple question, so simple as to be totally overwhelming. I am in the thrilling and terrifying position of being able to approach this question with openness and sincerity, with a field of possible answers that is nearly limitless.

To give a sense of just how open my plans are: I just finished a master’s degree program. I have a summer job, which ends at the end of August. I have a lease which ends in October. I have no debt, no car, no significant other, no kids. I have a plan to take a trip to Missouri to visit my parents in September and to spend several weeks at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and after that my calendar is completely and utterly blank. The only thing written on it after October 1 is Christmas.

That the question of how to live is so prominent in my life feels like the culmination of several years of building awareness. Along with many other people, I have recently become painfully aware of how dependent I am for my very existence on distant lands and distant people and of how poorly my values are expressed through the relationships that sustain me. As for many others, this journey started for me with an awareness of how far most of our food travels to get to us and of how ecologically and socially destructive conventional agricultural practices are in many parts of the world. Several years ago, I began to make an effort to buy more of my food from local growers who use agricultural methods that are more in line with my values. Last year I planted my own garden. This year, as the prices of food and other commodities have steadily risen, I have watched my choices move increasingly into the mainstream.

Yogis like to talk about the pain that comes with the moment of realization that one is not living up to one’s potential as a human being. This awareness necessarily precedes any positive change, but it is painful nonetheless. For me, the awareness of where my food comes from led to a whole series of other painful realizations about how my basic needs are met, about how little control or even knowledge I have with respect to these things. So, in thinking about how to live, I have been actively searching for communities that have achieved at least some autonomy with respect to their food supply, their water supply, their energy supply, and the treatment of their waste. It is this search that brought me to southern Mexico, to a cloud forest turned cattle ranch turned agricultural cooperative.

Now, as I contemplate this question of how to live, of how to move from painful awareness to real change, I feel that my heart is being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, I am a thoroughly urban person. I love being able to walk, ride my bike, and take public transportation to every place I need to go. I love corner markets and corner bars. I love neighborhoods and dog parks and community gardens. I love clubs and shows and 24 hour diners. I am also convinced that if our species is to have a future on this planet, we must find a way to make cities work, since over half the world’s population now lives in them. On the other hand, I love the great outdoors. I love walking through woods, swimming in lakes, working in the sun. I love quiet. I love stars. In a rural area it seems possible that I might find or help create a community that handles its own food, water, energy, and waste needs; whereas in a city, this task is so daunting as to feel nearly impossible. Still, as much I loved being at Las Cañadas, and as deeply as I respect and admire the life in which I was immersed there, I can’t shake the feeling that the question of how I myself shall live has an entirely different answer from the one that is expressed there.

Vote for Me!

One of my articles is featured this month in inTravel magazine. The magazine holds a contest each month. Readers vote for their favorite article, and the winner is given a prize. Please read my article, register (it only takes a few seconds) and vote for me!

The article: Living in Ecuador: 5 Stages of Culture Shock

The contest: inTravel May-June Travel Writing Contest