Poems and Latrines

Dobby: A Belizean House-Elf

By: Kevina Casaletto

Choosing the name for our dog,

that wasn’t even ours, was easy.

She was called Dobby,

for like the broken, beaten house-elf...

she loyally loved.

Defending our house with her blood and teeth.

We’d ignore her at the table,

where she laid beneath.

Her belly swelled,

she stole food...we knew.

One day she came,

the belly and beauty gone, our clue.

Replaced with ribs and teets,

A new...desperate look in those eyes once so sweet.

We now cooked for three.

We bathed she,

Got a mange injection from the Farm Feed.

I remember we said, “stay alive,

survive... and we will take you to the states,

to thrive.”

The thought hung over her like a bribe.

A little more than a year and she’d be free,

or a slave, depending on how you see.

Beatings, stones, and long days at the farm,

all of these she endured without apparent harm.

Would she leave a land of wild, free, roaming...

of tamale dinners, fresh water from rapids foaming?

Embrace a plane ride, injections, and not least...

the leash?

Wait little elf,

stay alive,

survive,

We will see.

We will see.

Which life was meant to be.

We No Po!

By: Edward Robert Broaster

(a famous Belizean poet and novelist)

The life style of the West

has been presumed to be the best

Assuming we are not in a good position

they have the ideal and most suitable condition

The Maya were told they are poor

Due to thatch roofs and mud floors

“Me have me corn and everything me need

Look! For next year crop, at all me seeds”

Neither bills nor tax we have to pay

a pleasant life we live I say

How dare you say my people po

Not a soul or bank we ever owe

As the sun rises early over the Earth

So too we in the morn to work the dirt

Without machines we work the land

Most precious asset we health and we hands

Some final thoughts by Greg:

Benefits of a Latrine

By: Greg Casaletto

When I first came to this country I had never used an outhouse or as they call them here latrines. Actually I held off using one of them until we visited the healthy communities training site of Armenia village to attend a training session. I only peed. I was fortunate enough to have a flush toilet at both my host families houses and saved my defecation for them. The next time I used one was approximately two months later when I took a ride out to Jalacte. Again, only pee. Then we moved into a thatch house with a latrine, but still I refused to use it because just 100 yards away there was the schools flush toilets awaiting my bowel movements.

One rainy day when I was either to lazy to take the walk or up for a personal challenge I decided that I would use the latrine. I realized that I was scaring myself for no reason. Here I was just inches away from nature, pineapple plants, coconut palms, and mango and orange trees. The breeze was refreshing and the plastic toilet seat I bought was a familiar comfort. I have now grown to appreciate my time in a latrine and have reassessed my feelings on them. I wanted to give a short thesis on how I feel about this subject. Let me begin with my quarrels with bathrooms.

I really don’t like bathrooms, in fact I am downright grossed out by them. I never really thought about it but it is gross that we keep the place where we defecate so close to where we sleep. And don’t even get me started on when directors decide to put a fight seen in a movie that ends up in a public bathroom, things like that just send chills through my whole body. Being a man I fully take advantage of the “world is my urinal” way of thinking, accentuated but not limited to when the sun goes down.

Indoor bathrooms, unless maintained and cleaned daily, take on a mildewy, moldy, scummy feel. I really only feel comfortable in a bathroom when I taste the bleach fumes that are lingering in a freshly sanitized bathroom. For some reason I don't feel this way about latrines.

Latrines tend to have rather large gaps between the walls and roof and sometimes, as in the case of mine, between the walls and floor. This removes the mildew and mold smell, even though it may still grow there.

As far as my main complaint about latrines, the smell. It really isn't that bad and it pretty much disappears when you sit down. If your thinking to yourself "how is that a benefit?" Well Imagine you are a cute little female PCV who is visiting an even cuter male PCV in Toledo. On your way to visit him you decide to eat one of those burritos in Dangriga. You know the ones, they're really good but they all have an inevitable outcome which will bring you to the latrine later that day. After you make your trip to the already smelly latrine, you can rest assured that said "cute male PCV" will not walk into the latrine and say to himself, "Gross! She stunk up the latrine."

Have you ever gone to someone's house and used there bathroom and clogged the toilet? Of course you have, you wouldn't be human if you didn't. I can guarantee that you will never say "Miss Choco, do you have a plunger? I somehow managed to clog your latrine."

I can hear all of you saying, "Greg, why aren't you talking about those midnight hikes in the rain? The bug bites on your genetalia? The terrifying splashback during the rainy season when your latrine is an extra 2 feet of liquid in it?"

Yea those suck, but why do you have to be so negative? Just remember next time your sitting on your cement throne listening to the dog sniffing around outside and watching the scorpion crawl past your dropped trousers that this latrine is overall better than those flush toilets that the people in town have, no matter what they say.