What would you prefer, a good fuck or a good shit?

That's the opening line of a joke I heard in Jo'burg. The punchline is that a good shit is more enjoyable because you don't have to hug it for two hours after you've had it. Hmm. That says a lot about Jo'burgers and their sense of humour. What could be better than a two-hour hug with the person you just made love with? But being far from home and as afraid of shit as any normal person brought up in England, I was amazed by the idea that there are people who openly admit that having a shit is good fun. I also realised that like any standard three-year-old, I'm extremely interested in shit.

Shit is important. Let's face it, producing shit is probably the only constructive contribution that we human beings make to this planet; apart from leaving our corpses of course. As I combed my head for more shit references, I realised that over the years, I've been a latent shit-head, collecting random pearls of shit-wisdom. Erica Jong, for example, told me in her book, Fear of Flying, that she had done a world survey on attitudes to shit.

The English, she said, invented the water closet so that they would have to suffer neither the sight nor the smell of shit. As soon as you dump in an English toilet, it's gone, hidden by toilet paper and half-disappeared around the corner. The Germans, in contrast, have modified the original Thomas Crapper, so that you drop your load onto a kind of mezzanine level where it can be inspected, or a sample can be gathered for a more professional opinion. Then there's the Italian jobs.

On a visit to Rome I uncovered the Italian key to unrepressed chatter, ostentation and sociability. It starts in the morning. They get up early. Get dressed without bathing. Then step out and walk to a cafe. There they take their coffee, usually in one. Offer afternoon coffee to an Italian and he or she will probably reply quizzically, "No thank you, I've had MY coffee." The clue is in the "MY coffee", because for an Italian, morning coffee has a very special function. It does more than haul you out of your morning hangover. It frees the bowels. The short walk back from the cafe serves as a constitutional: get home, good shit, good shower; and dress. The result: clean arse all day. It's better. Far better. You feel like dressing up, wearing finer fabrics. You actually feel friendlier. Try it. Which takes me to Islam.

I once stayed in a Malay Campung (village). I didn't know that the family I was staying with was Muslim; until I visited the little corrugated-iron shed that stood a few yards from the house. There I sat, having just eased myself, looking for the toilet paper. All I could see was a tin can, half full of water. I'd heard about this but never tried it. I knew enough to use my left hand to wipe-arse and my right to pour water. But I couldn't resist a quick inspection halfway through the operation. This was the first time ever, I'd put shit on my fingers on purpose. Then there was the feeling of my arsehole. Wow, Arabs do this everyday? Call me repressed, but that was also the first time I'd ever touched my arsehole without the protection of a flannel. And it felt like I had communed with my real self, I mean it. Anyway, I came out of the toilet with my hand feeling a little unclean. I now understood why Muslims are so disgusted when you hand them something with your left. On the other hand, my arsehole had that brand-spanking, out-of-the-box feel. I felt great. There's more.

Mozambique suffered over twenty years of war. Think what that can do to any country's sewerage system. I spent a couple of weeks last year in the northern port of Beira. There, even hotels didn't have running water, taking a shit was no fun. But one day, I decided to take a walk and a spliff over the salt flats by the sea. I stood gazing at the ocean for a while. And noticed that there were quite a lot of people walking about, looking downwards, some carrying toilet paper. I looked groundward. Several healthy looking stools lay either side of the path. I was clearly standing in the middle of a huge, outdoor shit-house.

The next day I took my post-coffee constitutional in the direction of the salt-flats. I was equipped with a ready-made big-head and a roll of toilet paper. Mornings, I discovered, are peak hours. As I squatted, passers by greeted me or waved, with their right hand (of course) toilet paper in their left. From that day on, I made all my deposits at the salt flats. I wish I could today.

On to Part II...

-- Colin Charles