Love and Latrines by Mary Lou Shefsky

Author:Mary Lou Shefsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The Move to San Lorenzo

and a New Assignment

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

–Lao Tzu

Stephen and I found a small house to rent a couple of blocks off the main east-west highway in the outlying town of San Lorenzo, only eight miles from the center of Asunción. It was available as of February 1st, and we moved in that week. San Lorenzo used to be a rural town, but in 1976, the growing urban sprawl of Asunción made it difficult to tell where town boundaries were. It felt like we were living in a neighborhood of the capital, but it was still a 45-minute urban bus ride to the Peace Corps office. As we anticipated, San Lorenzo was much more convenient for us than Ybycuí, and the site was in Peace Corps’ middle pay tier.

The house had a modest-sized room, with one end serving as a sleeping area and the other meant for the kitchen. The kitchen area had a sink, but the plastic pipe through which water was supposed to drain had been bent on purpose into an “L” shape to create an elbow. We were careful to allow only water down the drain. The small bathroom had a toilet, sink, and shower fixture, but there was no running water in the house. Water pipes were being laid a few blocks away, but the work was not advancing in our direction. Still, it was nice to have a more modern setup inside the house, an improvement from using a latrine. Stephen and I pulled water from the well to flush the toilet. The house, which had electricity, came with some furnishings—a large armoire, a double bed, vinyl sofa, kitchen table with chairs, and a small refrigerator.

While living in San Lorenzo, Stephen and I washed our own clothing most of the time. I was accustomed to the chore, but it was new to Stephen. He asked me to help him wash a quality down sleeping bag he had purchased from Burl, who was shunning all products made from anything of animal origin. I helped with the washing by hand, which wasn’t a problem. Using rubbing and squeezing motions, we worked as a team to suds up the bulky item on a clean corner of our brick patio near the well. However, the process of rinsing it was prolonged and tedious. Stephen and I took turns pulling bucket after bucket of water from the well to rinse the sudsy mess. If the soap wasn’t all rinsed out, an item developed an unpleasant sour smell. After a long afternoon of rinsing the sleeping bag, the two of us called it quits, hoping our labor had been adequate. It was, but we subsequently sent our heavy clothing and towels out to a laundress. I continued to wash lighter clothing in a basin, scrubbing with a soft brush to remove dirt while preserving the integrity of the fabric.

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