Not sure if I mentioned this before: but everywhere you go in PEB (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia), you have to put your toilet paper in the little bin, that's always provided in the bathroom for you. I haven't dropped my toilet paper in the toilet for about 5 months. Today, I did it again for the first time. Because this is Santiago, and it's not some backward banana republic, and you can do things like that. And once again, I was surprised at how surprised I was. It felt really, really weird! Not only am I going to have to acclimatise to Western life again — I'm going to have to learn how to go to the toilet, like a Western person does, all over again.
It was the strangest thing. I was reaching for the bin, about to put the paper in it: and then I realised that there wasn't a bin. And I realised that you could, and that you should, just drop the paper in the toilet bowl. And suddenly, I was gripped with a terrible fear. "How can I drop it in the bowl?" I thought. "You can't do that — the whole toilet will block up!" And, as most people who've been to Latin America will know first-hand, this is quite a valid fear to fall victim to.
And it went against 5 months of instinct to just drop it into the bowl. And I felt like I'd forgotten how to do this, and I was afraid that I'd get it wrong. But I managed it, and I flushed the toilet, and I couldn't help but be amazed that it actually flushed, with the paper in there and all. Seems that using a Western toilet isn't like learning to ride a bike: if you don't do it for long enough, you can forget! And this is something that I'm going to have to re-learn, and fast.
This would have to win the award for "blog post that I never in my wildest dreams imagined I'd ever write". Hahahaha.