Arabic toilet habits

We once had a connecting flight from Dubai. Dubai’s airport is huge and they are still expanding. With all this money going everywhere some should practically go down the drain because the toilets were hopeless.

I tell you folks, it is a blessing that the West does not have spray showers or pitchers in public toilets for washing after relieving.

In our attempts to maintain personal hygiene in the Arab world we make a mess of the public’s. Women must make ablution in the tiny cubicles so that not only the toilet seat but even the walls are dripping from the effect. Then they must emerge from the cubicle with drenched sandals so that the rest of the toilet gets wet too.

The Eastern toilets are called ‘hamam al-Arabi’ (Arabic toilets) in the Arab world and look something like this:

Many Arabs prefer hamams al-Arabi over hamams al-faranji (English toilets) which typically look like what you already know. The hamams al-Arabi stink acerbically sometimes because of the lack of ‘water closet’ that neutralizes odors, but most people prefer them anyway because they don’t ‘splash’ and because you don’t have to rest your clean washed bottom on the seat.

The Arabs, like many other Eastern and Far Eastern people, wash their arse in case you didn’t know and studies have shown that our bums are arrogantly 92% cleaner than western bottoms!

Often a young girl will run into the public toilets, check each cubicle and return to announce to other females waiting outside that ‘kulu hamam al faranji’ (all are English toilets). The females look upset because this would mean some of them will have to improvise. Improvisations are not appreciated by authorities (damn the Western influence!) and often you will find signs like the one below in public loos:

At the airport a Philippina nanny went into a cubicle with a rather cheeky and rude little boy then returned quickly to let me go in. I thought that was a kind gesture until I peeped inside and realised that it was a “squatters’ quarter” aka hamam al-Arabi. Suddenly, I was offended. Did she think I was a “squatter”?

I moved towards a cubicle with a proper toilet bowl. The entire area was flooded having been used by a hasty woman who must have frowned before improvising. I imagined her squatting on the hamam al-faranji’s toilet seat. Now when you squat on hamam al-faranji, you are bound to spray urine on yourself so you must wash your feet – and your legs. The seat was dripping wet. Of course. There were block heel marks on the rim of the toilet seat. Of course. The floor was wet, even the walls were wet. Of course.

The pressure inside my bladder was building and I had to make a choice fast: to squat or not to squat, that was the only question.

Humiliated, I went into the “squatters’ quarter” and squatted.

Sometimes, I really miss the ‘no-washing-only-wiping’ philosophy of the land I have left behind!