SNAFU

This story could happen anywhere. It could happen in Japan, Singapore or India. It could happen in Egypt, the United States or Brazil. Today it just happened to have happened here, in Viet Nam.

If you have lived in a country where labor is cheap, and things are taken care of for you, then you know very well that if you have someone come to fix something in your home, you're more often than not going to have to do some cleaning after they leave. Usually the cleaning is minimal - some mopping of the floor, some sweeping, or some air freshening. In most cases, the repair to your home that you'll have to do once the repairmen leave is minimal - in most cases. This is not one of those cases.

I do not even want to look in the direction of our second bathroom. Just thinking about it disgusts me. The putridness which lies within is difficult to describe because I can't bring myself to fully examine the situation. I am leaving most of it up to Mike. He will clean it enough for us to be able to ignore it for the remainder of the weekend, and then the maids will come on Monday, and I will disinfect it, to be sure, before we actually use our sweet yellow and green bathroom again. But let me begin from the beginning.

The doorbell rang, and we assumed it was our nanny interview. It was, however, instead two men bringing by our newly tailored cushion covers for the sofa. Yipee!!! Mike supervised as the men went about the business of changing the cushions, for they couldn't quite figure it out themselves. At some point, Mike noticed that the zipper from one of the cushions had (already) come apart, and he showed it to one of the men. The man said something to Mike, and Mike led him down the hallway. I immediately got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I heard the bathroom door close and Mike returned.

We heard water - lots of it. We could not help but wonder at the sounds coming from that room. First came not the sound of someone using the restroom, but the sound of the sprayer. If you have lived in the Middle East or in Asia, you know all about the sprayer. Using the sprayer is fine, it, however is not generally the first thing one does when s/he enters the restroom. There was some hacking, some blowing, and lots of spraying. My mind began to wander. The sounds continued.

I remember last summer, when the movers came to pack us out from Dubai. After the boxes were full, one of them repeatedly asked me for the "CR". I had no idea what the "CR" was nor what he was asking for. Eventually he said "comfort room" and I understood. I sent him to our second bathroom, forgetting about the maid's bathroom and the half bath. He neither closed the door nor washed his hands - the former, I always assumed was common courtesy and the latter just made me grateful the boxes were already packed. These were minor offenses however, and could be overlooked.

As Mike and I sat there, we listened to the noises coming from our comfort room. I knew that the sprayer was not being pointed at the toilet, nor was it being held in one direction. It sounded as if it were spewing water everywhere. Then came the intermittent hacking, and ?nose blowing? We were unsure, but it sounded disgusting.

Is he showering in there? And if so, where? There's no shower. In the middle of the room? Is that the toilet sprayer or the shower head - the one for the bathtub that's not really a bathtub? What about the bathroom rugs - they must be soaked. Maybe he was kind enough to move them. Is it because tomorrow is National Day and he wants to shower in order to be prepared to party tonight? This is probably not the time or the place. Isn't he supposed to be working?

The toilet flushed in the middle of my thoughts. The hacking, the sprayer, the toilet flushing. There was a lot of activity going on in there.

In many houses in Viet Nam, the bathrooms contain wet rooms, not the bathrooms North Americans think of in their homes. In a wet room, similar to some European water closets, there is no separation between the shower stall and the remainder of the room, there just happens to be a shower head in the corner. This is what I was thinking. This man is using our bathroom as a wet room - but it's not a wet room.

"I gotta remember," Mike began, "there's a bathroom in the lobby." I merely nodded. Good observation.

Then we heard the water from the sink - full blast. Mike and I tried to suppress our laughs and tried not to imagine what we would find once he was done. All I could think about was the amount of cleaning and disinfecting I'd done when we'd moved in, preparing for our new family, and how while we do have maids who come, they do more straightening and maintaining than disinfecting. In my ninth month of pregnancy, this was not a chore I was looking forward to - potentially. I still had hope that a large-scale cleaning this weekend could be avoided.

The man came out of the restroom and began working again. His feet looked clean, and the bottom of his pants were damp, but he looked fairly dry otherwise. I was hopeful. Maybe he was just washing his feet - over the toilet. Perhaps he was Malaysian or Indonesian and was performing ablutions for the call to prayer - perfectly acceptable.

The doorbell rang again. This was our nanny interview. We sat down and began talking and I momentarily forgot about the bathroom episode.

After our nanny interview left, I walked down the hallway. I decided to peak into bathroom as I walked by. I didn't even need to turn the light on. Water, water everywhere...from the wall of the bathroom up to the door. The toilet seat was up and not in its cleanest condition. Mike came along and turned on the light. There were chunks on the floor.

"Eeewwwwwww".

He picked up the wash cloth he'd used for shaving - it was chunky as well. I walked away. I didn't want to see anymore.

"Do you think he was throwing up in here?" Mike asked. "There are chunks in here...and the hacking..."

"I don't even want to think about it," was all I could say. Our sweet little bathroom, the one in which we'll bathe our little newborn once s/he arrives, the one where I occasionally soak by candlelight in our our pseudo-bathtub, had been violated - while we were home.

Of course we cannot fathom why the boy would do such a thing. Out of ignorance - maybe he didn't realize someone else's loo was not the place to spray water everywhere (perhaps showering)? Out of malice? - maybe he was tired of reupholstering other people's furniture and decided to get back at Western wankers in his own way. Out of pure selfishness? - perhaps he really was going to get his party on and this was his only opportunity to shower. When one is young and ready to party, he may get desperate in that situation. But thoughts of books like The Help and The White Tiger kept drifting into my mind.

As we began the process of figuring out how to clean up the mess, we could not suppress our simultaneous curiosity, amusement, and disgust. We love living in overseas, but we did not like this.