Celebrity Status

I keep thinking my life in toilet-land can get no stranger. Happily, I keep being proven wrong.

It started relatively normally. I woke up late-ish with a full intention to miss the bus, but they waited for me, bless them, so no rickshaw for me this morning.

The morning agenda was three concurrent tracks, so one of those deals where all the talks you most want to see were scheduled at the same time. I learned about toilets in Russia that generate their power through Urine,  Green buildings in Italy that reduce the need for air conditioning through being covered in foliage, a former banker who now trains toilet entrepreneurs in India, and the five pillars of Indonesia’s toilet initiatives.

A lot of the presentations contained a lot of wordy slides, statistics, and goals that are outside the realm of what I, as an amateur, could understand competently on the fly. Two presentations particularly stood out for their clarity, polish and engagement: The ones presented by Toilet Hackers.

I identify with Toilet Hackers for a lot of reasons. They are young, hip, nerdy, and interested in finding creative ways to address the global sanitation crisis. The premise is that decentralization is key- there are so many places with so many unique challenges that no one set of regulations or recommendations can cover them all. So they create tool kits to help people invent their own initiatives. They run on the idea of open space- bringing people together with only a very broad agenda, and creating room for dialogue and action to happen. 

The first presentation was entitled ‘Girls helping Girls.’ 23% of girls in India drop out of school by the age of 13. Other developing countries have similar statistics. The problem is largely due to inadequate toilets and a culture of shame around the menstrual cycle. Their project Girls For Girls aims to address this by empowering school girls in the US with a tool kit to fundraise and raise awareness, creating a safe space to talk about the issues.

After tea the co-founder Michael Lindenmayer spoke on a completely different topic: How to see tourists as potential contributors to society. Over the course of the conference there has been a lot of talk about clean toilets leading to more tourists. But he went deeper into the question of how to engage tourists not only as sight-seers, but as potential investors, philanthropists and collaborators. Don't show tourists only the good things and hide the bad. Let them see the whole picture, tell them stories, inspire them to get involved. 

An observation he made in the Q&A session stuck with me. No solution is eternally stable or sustainable. There will be new technologies and inventions for as long as man exits (and longer for all we know). Companies and agendas will shift. But the one sure thing is that all 7 billion people in it will need to do their business. Making it one of the surest markets out there! 

After the speeches had finished for the day there was to be a carnival, and those who were interested were invited to borrow traditional costumes and join the parade. I’m always one for an adventure, so I was in the group of about 20 who were bundled into a bus with packed lunches.

We were driven to the Mayor’s house to get changed. It was a stunning, absolutely palatial building (or rather set of buildings.) We were brought to a room round the back, where everyone was dressed. We had been hoping for something elegant like the dancers we had seen, but it was more military than anything else. The girls were given white trousers and shirts, red jackets, and a sarong with a belt that went round and round (and round and round and round….)

The outfit was finished off with black caps which were a bit like jockey caps, but with a few extra spikes and bulges. We were told we all looked a bit like Princess Anne. My head was far too large for any of the hats, so it was balanced rather precariously on top of my head.

After we were dressed we had a brief photo shoot with the mayor and some other important looking people. We were then packed back onto the bus, where we had to wait for some time, getting quite fidgety and hot and sticky. Finally when the diplomats had finished being photographed we followed a police escort out the gate to a large football field where all the rest of the Carnival Participants were waiting.

That’s when we started to realize the scale of the thing. There were 4000 participants including dance troupes, school groups, military, brands who were selling at the conference and a large toilet flotilla surrounded by rodents and cockroach puppets. And among all these people we were the guests of honour… which meant we got to ride in open top horse drawn carriages.

It was, for all the world, like being royalty. Everyone wanted pictures with us while we were waiting. They were also delighted when we took pictures of them. When the procession started the streets were lined with people waving and taking pictures. We crawled along for over an hour and must have passed at least a ten thousand people along the street (much more if you count the cars and motorcycles that got held up as we passed.)

We smiles and waved all the way until our wrists were cramped and our jaw ached. But it was impossible not to smile! Whether people were waving because they were impressed or the westerners in ill-fitting outfits was a bit of a joke we may never know, but either way it was a most memorable experience. One of the most incredible parts was the eye contact. I’m not sure I’ve ever looked directly at so many people. I remember a fair few too. Sometimes they would smile back, sometimes burst into giggles or hide behind their friends, but they all acknowledged the moment of connection in their own way.

At the end of the parade we were escorted off the carriages to listen to a special ‘Mister Toilet’ song and watch a performance in which all the rodents were vanquished by the introduction of good sanitary practices. This involved quite a lot of acrobatics.

The city had been working on this event for over a year. What better example of using spectacle to get an audience for your cause? The main purpose of the exercise was to make sure that the toilet Summit wasn’t just a thing that happened in the city, but an event that connected back to the community. It was not only a show to impress the visitors, but, as Michael suggested in his talk a chance to get potential leverage the power of tourists to be connected to the city in a more meaningful way than just coming to experience culture. For that day we became a unique part of the culture, in an experience that couldn’t have happened without that unique mix of people and interests.

The only sad part of the day was starting to say goodbyes, as various people are starting to trickle away. But I have made so many amazing connections from all over the world, so hopefully it won’t be goodbye forever. There is a real community in the toilet world, and people who have known each other for decades. I even met a couple who met working on toilets (I guess there’s hope for me after all!) As Jack Sim said on the bus back, when we were all flush with the success of the carnival: “Shit is sticky… The people that shit together stick together.”

Make 'em laugh

Are you able to laugh at yourself?

Are you able to make other people laugh?

Are you able to talk seriously when you make them laugh?

Jack Sim is a veritable guru. These are the three questions he told us been asked by Mister Condom, in his introduction speech this morning. And so Mr. Condom became the Kung Fu master, as it were, for Mr. Toilet. But it’s not kung fu the two were studying. It was how to make the un-talkable talkable (I do hope there is a film made one day! Jackie Chan, or whoever the big action heroes of the day are. Maybe Matt Damon, since he does a lot of work around sanitation already. But I digress.)

“We must turn poop culture into pop culture” Sim told us. This means making toilets sexy, turning going to the toilet into a news story, and, most importantly, talking about it in language that’s accessible to everyone. Often people shroud toilet talk in acceptable academic terms and “although it’s correct it is not effective… it’s very difficult for ordinary people to understand.

This is why instead of talking about 'fecal matter' we talk about 'shit'.

The World Toilet Summit 2013 is quite possibly one of the classiest places shit has ever been talked about. Since the conference has officially started there were snazzy VIP cars waiting in front of the hotel to take us to the conference (To be honest I would have preferred my rickshaw. Going to try to sneak past those friendly hosts tomorrow.)

The welcoming ceremony involved, besides the speech mentioned above, several dance performances, some singing (they have a lovely national anthem!) and the rather amusingly dramatic unveiling of a toilet with flashing lights and dramatic theme music (the toilet itself didn’t look to be anything exceptional… I was half expecting a Dalak to roll up and plunge it. That’s all it was wanting to complete the bizarreness of the moment. When it's my turn to stage the summit...

After two hours of pomp and circumstance the World Toilet Summit was declared open by the Mayor of Solo, which meant we could go for tea and coffee before launching into the series of “talks by 45 reputable and proficient speakers.” I adore the Indonesian way of phrasing things. It’s usually correct, just not the way most native English speakers would say it. For example on the airplane the English safety video began “Let us enlighten you as to the safety features of this aircraft.”

A subject that came up several times across the course of the day was the state of last night’s toilets. The first speaker asked who had visited them, and then asked me of all the people there to comment. It was a suitably awkward moment which confirmed that my public speaking skills still have a long way to go.

The second speech was by Dr. Clara Greed, who began by laying into the toilets pretty fiercely (so fiercely in fact that others who hadn’t been to the toilets kept coming to me for the rest of the day to confirm ‘was it really that bad?’) She actually had a go at quite a few other things as well: urilifts, pay-per-use-toilets, and unisex cubicles all got black marks.

She talks in much the same way she writes: passionately and logically, but bordering on the extremist. Pay gates she called ‘false economy’ and made the valid point that a lot of tourists aren’t familiar with British coinage, and, anyway, use their credit cards when traveling because it’s easier than changing money, so they won’t necessarily have the means to pay. Unisex cubicles she considers ‘an assault to modesty’ and pointed out that it is prohibitive to certain cultures where there are taboos about men and women sharing the same facilities. The Jubiloo consequently was flagged as the epitome of both these evils, at which point it got personal for me. It may not be an ideal situation to charge, but at the same time Healthmatic are doing a remarkable job providing a quality service in the current climate of un-subsidized toilet provision. It’s a free market, so users can always go to the South Bank Centre if they object that strongly. What makes it wrong is when there isn’t freedom of choice.

Talking about her lecture over lunch my dining companions were shocked that I was pro-unisex cubicle… and I equally surprised that they were so solidly against. I suppose that’s my cultural naivite showing (and I know it’s there. I think I’m reasonably open minded and accepting, but there is a lot I haven’t seen…) They cited fear of shame and rape as an argument against sharing, even when I pointed out that the toilet is attended whenever it is open. I know it’s too culturally ingrained to argue that people should get over it, because unisex toilets reduce queuing times and make good sense in an environment where you can’t predict the gender ratio on any given day.

Cultural exchange and learning works both ways.

Another presenter questioned whether it is better for tourist destinations to cater to the western market by providing seat toilets, or to push to educate their visitors on the health benefits of a good squat (which are many.)

The speeches after lunch may have been good, but I can’t say for sure. It’s always that point in any conference that makes you start to question the purpose of life, and wasn’t helped by the fact that one was mostly in Indonesian. To be fair though, I can only imagine what it’s like for the majority of the people at the conference to whom English isn’t a native language. We westerners are spoiled in more ways than our toilets.

The last speaker blew all the others out of the water for sheer polish and engagement. Victoria Bollam of Lixil came on strong with a pop quiz;

How much waste will be produced by humans in 2025?

Taking the average length of a poo as 20cm it will be enough to stretch to the sun and back… twice! She didn’t get into how we account for diarrhea which doesn’t really have a measurable length, but then I guess if we hit those millennium development goals there will be a lot less diarrhea to worry about.)

Her speech was about the importance of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and branding, and Lixil’s brand new social contribution programme ISIS, which aims to provide sanitation in schools for 2,018,000 school children by 2018. The programme is named Isis after the Egyptian Goddess because her hat resembles a throne which resembles a western toilet.

All this doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of my 20 pages of notes, let alone the conversations I had during the day and the people I met. But I will leave you for now with empty promises to dig deeper into the other stuff.

I was so wiped out by the end of the day, that I hardly dared network at the cultural dinner (which was in the stunning Mangkunegaran Palace) for fear I would start spouting worse nonsense than usual. So I ate yet more peculiarly delicious Indonesian food (new favorite is coconut ice cream) watched the dancers and smiled a lot.

Happily there were toilet facilities provided at the palace. Seats and toilet paper and everything. They even came complete with rather pretty lizards! 

Diving In

What a day this has been! After not one but three enormous meals, my belly is completely stuffed with food, but that doesn’t half compare to the amount of information stuffed into my head!

The day started slowly enough. I went down for breakfast earlier than yesterday so that I had time to sample what turned out to be deep fried shrimp and vegetables. I figured on spending most of the day working on research and then wandering over to the summit exhibition later in the day, but by 11 after skyping home and re-doing my hair umpteen times I decided my inability to focus was probably my brain telling me ‘you’re in Indonesia! What are you doing sitting around in your hotel? Scardy cat!’

So off I went… by bycicle rickshaw again today. I have decided this is the decent compromise between walking and taxi.

The trainers were just heading off for their field visits, so I waded through the hordes of people in their world toilet summit t-shirts to get to the exhibition room. It was somewhat smaller than I expected, with no more than 20 exhibitors, but I started making the rounds. It was a striking mix of everything from sturdy concrete squat slabs to top of the market toilets with heated seats and adjustable bidet sprays. Beside that there were stands for Indonesian tourism and culture and a variety of cleaning products.

My first conversation was with a rep from EcoLoos AK who told me about liquid compost. The fertalizer can then be sold on, or sold back to the company, so that the toilet becomes a sustainable source of income for the user as well as the company (again that subtle double meaning of 'eco'.)

On the opposite side of the room I came to Toto- the giants of the asian toilet industry (and pretty significant in the rest of the world.) Their stand featured a row of their latest models which salute you by lifting the lid as you walk past (somewhat alarming the first time, but a nice feature for the forgetful… I have heard it jokingly referred to as ‘the marriage saver’). The highest end model has a stunning array of buttons to control temperature water flow (you can even make it gyrate and give your bum a sort of hydro massage), scent and flush. 

In the Toto stand was a small green lawn with a display of taps and shower heads, and when I had finished ogling the amazing-smarter-than-me toilets I turned my attention to these these in the company of Armin, the vice president of Neoperl fittings to regulate water flow to desired standards. They are really amazing little gadgets. Each one looks something like what you get when your headphones fall apart, and can be inserted into a faucet or tap. The genius is that you don't loose the water pressure with the lower flow.

He also told me about the frustrations of getting people to adopt... while institutions may like the idea of going green, many of them are reluctant to make the investment to fit out every tap. One work around for this is going straight to the manufacturers and getting the taps fitted from installation so that the end use doesn't have to think too much about it. 

By the time we had finished with the taps the toto crew were heading off to lunch, and generously invited me along. So I found myself in a taxi with thirteen business men, mostly speaking Indonesian. We went for Chinese in a rather posh place. The courses just kept coming and coming. Soup, duck, beef and chips(?), eggplant, fish, prawns, and a couple other things I couldn't identify. Over lunch th conversation ranged over quite a few topics... though not toilets. Most memorable was the conversation around cell phones and status. Apparently having more than three phones is a symbol of status. In which case I do not think I have ever been in a room with so much power! 

That set me thinking about the statistic that more people in the world have access to a mobile phone than a toilet. And similarly that more people have access to a television than a toilet. I'm sure I'm not the first person to have thought of this, but surely there ought to be some way of harnessing that technology  to spread information about sanitation? 

Back to reality with a pudding that was something like buttered toast with layers of chocolate and peanut butter with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Definitely an overindulgance, but delicious none the less. 

Back at the hotel I settled in the lobby to try to journal some thoughts, but was interrupted by Juliet who was ready to have a more in-depth conversation about sanitation. She was full of suggestions as to who might fund projects, and how to pitch them. She usefully described sanitation as a balance between hardware and software: the infrastructure and the cultural awareness. 

Then came the high point of my say, when she introduced me to Jack Sim, better known as Mr. Toilet and the founder of the World Toilet Organiation. I had had that nervous self-consciosness one often gets before meeting a personal hero, but I needn't have worried. He took one look at my business card and proclaimed "we need to take this world wide!" He is as friendly and down to earth as can be, and absolutely bubbling with energy. He introduced me to the head of the Russian Toilet Organisation, who speaks only a small amount of English, but is equally enthusiastic and charming. I sat next to him on the bus journey to Benteng Vastenberg where our welcome diner was held. He chatted most of the way, getting out his phone and showing me pictures of toilets he had inspected, proclaiming "Good!" or "bad!" accordingly. My personal favorite was a series in which there were lots of people running a marathon ("many people. No toilet") and a lonely roadside toilet ("toilet- no people").

Many people, no toilet pretty well describes the evening. The government of Solo had planned a spectacular cultural night, with traditional song and dances, speeches, and yet more elaborate traditional food. There was an appearance from the past three years worth of 'Miss Indonesia' winners, and a pair of presenters who my table agreed were worthy of Eurovision. But when the amount of water we had drunk started striking about half way through our enquiries about the facilities fell on confused ears. "No toilets here." 

Was it possible? No toilets at the toilet summit?

Not quite. At last a toilet was located at the far end of a darkened field. A steep set of steps lead up to four cubicles, two ladies and two men. Each contained a squat toilet, and a bucket of rather used looking water. The floor was about two inches deep in a liquid that I can only hope was more water. So there, at what was meant to be a celebration of Solo's commitment to improved sanitary conditions I had my first squat toilet experience. 

My loo-going companion was furious about the situation, but I think it's all the more reason that Solo is the right place for this event to be taking place. They have probably come a long way, but have a long way to go. They're still learning and this gives them the chance to get feedback. What they do with it and whether they act on it is up to them in the long-run. And follow-through is certainly yet another large sanitation challenge, as NGOs discover over and over again. The ideal situation is to make yourself redundant by implementing changes that get internalised in a society and run independently. Eavesdropped on the way home on conversations about inventivising good sanitary practices in schools. 

Make it fun. 

Make it rewarding. 

Make it entertaining. 

Lots to continue to think about!

The summit proper begins at 7:30 tomorrow (Indonesians, it seems, are morning people) so, though I haven't processed half of what I'd like to I have got six hours to catch some sleep before another full day of toilets begins. 

Authentic Tourism or Authentic Tourist

The official World Toilet Summit doesn’t start until Wednesday, but the ‘Training on trainers’ portion of the event began today. This part of the summit is geared specifically at those in the culture and tourism industries who are looking for practical training on running toilet facilities. 

The timing of my arrival (on the eve of this event) must have caused some confusion, because I got a call at 8 in the morning saying as I had missed the official transport I should get a taxi to the Sunan Hotel where the conference is being held.

I had a hasty shower (cold… but I suppose the weather is warm enough here that a hot shower is almost never really necessary.) and stopped by the café for breakfast. There was a baffling array of foods I wouldn’t normally associate with a morning meal (mostly noodles and meat), but aware that I was already late for the start of the conference I played it safe with toast and pineapple jam.

I can see the Sunan from my window, so it seemed quite silly to take a taxi. Instead I set out to walk. The first and greatest challenge was getting across the road. Crosswalks here are pretty much non-existant. One simply plunges into the road, weaving through cars and motorcycles, which don’t seem to ever slow down. Or, in my case one stands helplessly on the side of the road until a nice escort appears to get me across, blowing a whistle and dodging with me in tow between the vehicles. 

From the main road I walked along a much narrower and quieter street with mostly squat houses in a hodgepodge of different styles and materials. It took about ten minutes to find my way to the hotel. I went to check in, and they handed me a training manual and directed me towards the conference room. I tried to explain I hadn’t signed up to the sessions, but they just smiled and nodded at me and continued to direct me into the conference room, so in I went. I got in about half way through the welcoming speeches. Everything was in Indonesian, with the odd English phrase here and there.

The first training unit was also in Indonesian, though a lot of the slides were in English, so I had some clue as to what was going on. The topic was ‘Restroom Service Quality’ and it was largely about customer service and representation. Restrooms should be high quality both functionally and aesthetically (‘look, feel, sound and smell’… all the five senses save for taste, which is probably not one you want to have to think about in the context of toilets.)

Probably the most useful element of the day was chatting with Juliet from the World Toilet Organization at the break. She was particularly keen to talk about the importance of toilets in schools. I tried to explain very briefly what I was doing there and my own interest in sanitation and she seemed mildly amused by my business card (which has my title as ‘The Loo Tour Lady’. I had debated something with more gravity, but decided, for better or worse that ‘gravity’ is not the USP of what I do, so I may as well keep the amusement factor right from the outset.

She made the connection that story telling and performance are a particularly important way of spreading messages in Africa (and so another piece of my MA in Applied Theatre falls into place… why the use of Theatre for Development is particularly important in certain cultures.)

I left after the coffee break, figuring I would do some exploring. There was nothing of particular tourist interest of note nearby, so I just wandered and soaked in the atmosphere. The atmosphere involves a lot of honking. With an apparent lack of traffic signals or rules it seems to be the general practice to honk at every opportunity. It also turns out Solo is very much not a walking city. I couldn’t go more than two minutes without being offered a taxi. After wandering for about a half hour I finally accepted the offer of a bicycle rickshaw to get back to the hotel (which was 20,000 rupees- or about £2.)

I’d give quite a lot to have a local guide. It’s very hard (especially when jetlagged) to be on your own in a completely foreign country.

Flipping through the remainder of the ‘Trainers on training’ handbook back in my room I fount the experience I would most like to have: a unit on Tourism Villages. A tourism village is ‘a destination where the tourist can experience living in a village’ and participate in home-stays, local jobs (plowing, farming), learning traditional dance and crafts and cooking traditional food.

The concept is developed by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy and has been running since 2008. And of course toilets come into play. The improvement of toilets in villages is important to make tourists comfortable. ‘The number of homestays has increased … after “the clean toilet program.”’ The village of Penting Sari had 9 international tourists in 2008, and 511 in 2012.

A closely related concept is Eco Tourism. The main emphasis of the ‘eco’ here is not only ‘ecological’ but ‘economic’. It is tourism which is meant to boost economic development and political empowerment of local communities. 

In 2011 Habitat for Humanity partnered with Asia Pulp and paper to bring the struggling village of Soran to its feet by making it a tourist destination by capitalizing on its traditions of song and dance.

Anthropologically there’s lots of ethical debate about this. Arguments abound that turning culture into commodity somehow defiles it and makes it ‘staged’ instead of ‘authentic.’ An article by Cathering Allerton outlines it pretty well, describing the tensions between the gaze of the outsider and the invisible but perhaps much more important rituals and mentalities that make up a culture. She notes a villages use of the term ‘authentic tourist’ as a village’s description of that ilk of tourists who don’t speak the language or have any particular academic interest in the culture.

Other arguments aside, from a sanitary point of view I am sure that most people (tourists and villagers alike) would be perfectly happy to forgo an authentic experience of diarrhea, and any other experiences that come with poor sanitation.

I suppose it’s not as simple as that though, because sanitary reform involves re-training one aspect of culture both architecturally and psychologically, so back round again the arguments of preservation verses progress. It’s not the question of whether toilets should be done, but of how they should be done that sparks heated debate.

Back in the hotel my intentions to study and work were sabotaged by a three hour nap attack. When I had regained consciousness I wandered down to the hotel's nearly vacant restaurant. The lovely man who served me was quite insistant that a burger was what I should order, and I was too tired at this point to argue that I wanted to sample Indonesia cuisine, so a burger I had. My eating was supervised by the large iconic portrait of Audrey Hepburn on the opposite wall and accompanied by a Jessie J singing that ‘it isn’t ‘bout the money money money…’ singularly appropriate to my musings of late.

On many levels it is about the ‘money money money’… but the money is only a superficial sign of a wide range of deeper motives. 

Salam Solo!

I’m lounging in my rather nice hotel in Solo. It’s quite a stark contrast to what I was able to see of the streets outside with single story wooden shops (mostly closed by nine o-clock) as we drove here. Feels a bit like I am doing the whole thing wrong. I’m acting and being treated as the outside westerner… the country catering to me rather than me to them. But then again, that is why they have chosen to host the summit. To attract tourists who want to feel at home abroad. It will be interesting to see how this develops over the conference.

The flight from London to Dubai was uneventful. I watched a movie in Indonesian (not that I learned any of the language, but it helped put a nicer picture in my head than crime and drugs) an episode of Sherlock (quite a good crime drama actually, except that Watson probably ought to be sacked for completely unprofessional behaviour as a social worker. Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of my social worker friends have in their job description hanging around the client’s house in sexy-ish pajamas, snooping on his stuff without permission and giving their number out to any distressed teenager they meet. Still she’s very good.) I sat next to the most delightful child, who can’t have been more than one and a half. I also tried to watch World War Z, but too many rabid zombies in the first twenty minutes sort of put me off, so I just stole glances at the rest on the screen of the guy next to me. I may never know the fine details, but maybe that’s for the best. I gather Brad Pitt managed to find a vaccine, save the world and be reunited with his very pretty family, so that’s nice.

Landed in Dubai and made a bee-line for the toilets, not because I was in a particular rush to use them, but because I wanted to see if anything would be different. To my delight, though they were mostly western style there was a bidet hose on the wall. I managed to make a bit of a mess in the process of picking it up (very sensitive on-button!!!) so left the loo slightly sheepishly with damp patches on my trousers and bag.

The airport is otherwise pretty much like any other airport I’ve ever been in though there is a prayer room which is a cool concept (I didn’t intrude on it though.) I bought an overpriced hot chocolate and settled down to write the first part of this blog post.

The second leg of the journey was the longest: an 8 hour stretch from Dubai to Jakarta. I had vaguely considered the option of staying in Dubai for 11 hours and actually going beyond the airport, but after landing in Jakarta with 19 hours of traveling completed and several more to go I think I made the right choice for this time around.

When I was picking up my tourist visa ($25 and I can stay for up to 30 days) the woman asked if she could take my picture. I assumed it was some sort of formal thing, so politely said ‘of course’ and she whipped our her pink i-phone. I like to think that it’s because, as the only American in sight I was suitably exotic, but it could equally be that the was astounded by the state of my hair (I put my hairbrush in checked baggage you see… or at least I hoped I did!). Then came an interminable queue for to get through border control. Once I got to the front it all went pretty smoothly.

Jakarta was lovely. The airport has a lot more character than any other I have been in. The big picture windows look out on well kept gardens in full bloom. The bathrooms have a mixture of seats and squats (which I still haven’t braved.)

 Final stop: Solo where I was met by two of the tourist hosts for the summit.

Here there was a sign on the wall, detailing the toilet standards, including such points as:

1. the floor is always dry and clean

 ...

4. No smelly things, and the room’s fregrance is available

 ...

10. Covered from outsider

11. Room isn’t lack of fresh air and exhaust fan is available

12. Clothes hanger is available.

Final preparations: Indonesian Adventure

I will be heading off to the World Toilet Summit tomorrow! It's a scary and exciting new adventure. My first trip to Asia, my first big conference, and certainly the first time I have had to take this many pills to go anywhere (felt slightly queasy after the first malaria dose this morning, but, as my friends pointed out it's much better than actually getting Malaria!)

I have done some minimal preparations for what to expect from traveling abroad. Most notably I have been warned that they are quite serious about the death penalty for drug trafficking (I can only assume my malaria tablets are exempt) that the country is predominantly muslim so conservative dress is advised, but head coverings are not required, and that the people are generally hospitable.

Then there's the all-important question about toilets.

I have, thus far in my 24 years never traveled outside the realm of comfortable western plumbing. I've used dirty toilets, composting toilets, outhouses of various descriptions, but all along the seated throne model and all, at least theoretically, catering to those with a preference for toilet paper.

Indonesia (like most places) is reported to have an eclectic mix of toilets, from holes in the ground, to western-style seats. They seem, from what I have read to be a predominantly washing rather than wiping culture. Whether or not there will be toilet paper is, though I hate to admit it, one of the things I am going with most trepidation about.

The differences will likely be made even more interesting by the fact that I am at a conference that deals with sanitation, and that Solo's particular goal in hosting this event is to increase their attractiveness as a tourist destination. Their press release states:

Nowadays,  looking for clean and hygiene toilet is a problem  when people travel and being out of the house. Not only in Indonesia, but all over the world, awareness of public facilities is  so  minor, very few nation who provide excellent public service what called TOILET. The awareness of the need of these facilities is not there yet, even though we all know the mobillities and the travelers are increasing. Clean toilet become a marketing tools and competition among  tourists business, hospitals, airport  etc. With the damage of the environment of course  a better toilet in rural and urban become very important to prevent diseases.

So off I go, armed with my camera, an ipad, a couple million rupees, and a lot of curiosity.

Despite feeling terribly under-prepared, there is one phrase of Indonesian I have made sure to learn:

Di mana kamar kecil?
(Where is the toilet?)

The politics of privatized peeing

The UK premiere of Urinetown: The Musical was officially announced today. After a couple months of biting my tongue and desperately wanting to talk about the mysterious show billed as 'UGCLondon' I'm finally allowed.

I had written to the author, Greg Kotis, awhile back to ask about his inspiration and research for the musical. He very sweetly got back to me (putting him in the minority of people I e-mail about toilets!) to say that it was inspired by a backpacking trip in Europe in the mid 90-s when he tried to save money by avoiding pay-per-use toilets, but that other than that the concept was entirely metaphorical.

What intrigues me is how many issues he managed to touch on anyway. The privetisation of toilets is actually a big important question to which there are many pros and cons. The Good Loo Guide of the 1980's argues strongly for it, saying

"... I submit we need a man of vision (Richard Branson, are you listening?) to set up a chain of loos in every high street, a branch in every street of consequence to the toileteer." 

The thing is, the privatisation of Loos necessitates loos running as a business, and therefore charging a fee for use. And this is the point where a lot of us get hung up.

My own thinking on this subject has changed vastly over the last six months since I have researched the subject. The whole thing really began for a similar reason to the birth of Urinetown... I did not appreciate having to pay to pee. I was a poor student, and the 30p it cost to use the loo in a train station could buy me a chocolate bar at Sainsbury's. I remember spending over an hour with my sister in Venice trying to find a toilet that didn't cost a Euro. In the end we failed and got desperate enough to cough up.

The first thing to shift my thinking was a sign in St Martin’s in the Field. This was one of my favorite free haunts, but one day I noticed a little sign on the mirror of the Ladies asking for donations to keep them ‘The church of ever open toilet doors’. To keep the toilet running costs approximately £32,000 a year (or about 14p a visitor based on their claim of 250,000 visitors! Presumably somewhat subsidized by their other income.) That planted the seed in my mind that maybe companies who charged for toilet use weren’t so extortionate after all.

But the real pivot point came when I interviewed Ajay.

I met Ajay because a rather special toilet came to my attention. The Jubiloo is a relatively recent addition to the landscape of the South Bank. It is designed by architect Mark Powers and has been nominated for several architectural awards.

It also costs 50p a go, which at the time seemed an unthinkable fortune.

I met Ajay in the Southbank Centre (incidentally the nearest free toilet to the Jubiloo). He was incredibly friendly, intrigued by my project and not too surprised by the fact that I had a toilet plunger in my bag. He launched straight into telling me about the company, Healthmatic, and showing me pictures and demographics on the various toilets they manage.

Chances are if you have spent any significant amount of time in the UK you have used one of Healthmatic's toilets. They are one of the leading providers of public toilets and associated services in the UK. Ajay had been with them for about a year having come from a background in business development. He now spends his days talking to councils, businesses, transport hubs and shopping centers about what their options are for toilet provision. “I don’t like to call it sales” he told me. “… city relations me and Mal would call it.”

A major problem at the moment is that, in the spirit of Camron’s Big Society, public toilet provision is increasingly localized, and each local authority does their own thing.  Many of them hand it further down to town councils aren’t aware of the need for public toilet provision until it lands in their laps. And because there is no statutory obligation to keep them open closures often result when the responsibility is handed down. It’s “a quick win.”

He told me it’s difficult to make money out of toilets. The Jubiloo have a ten year lease on the Southbank space, and despite the fact that they are not paying any rent the toilet still costs approximately half-a-million a year to run with staffing and cleaning, water and electricity, not to mention recouping the cost of building the structure in the first place. 

Overall it has been a success. Looking at the toilet’s facebook page reveals far more compliments than complaints. Partly this is due to its focus on customer service. As a business the keepers of the Jubiloo understand that people who pay should get quality. The toilet is staffed by fulltime attendants and the stalls are cleaned after every use.

Still, the system does have its detractors. Complaints are usually responded to with a considerate “thank you for your feedback and here are the facts of why we charge what we do.” 

Towards the end of the interview I asked Ajay what he wished people thought about more. “People are really… how to put it… ignorant about why public loos need to charge," he told me. "People don’t understand the mechanics.”

I can now count myself among the enlightened. That doesn’t mean I don’t still use the free toilet. I admit (having shifted from poor student to poor entrepreneur) I still look for ways to avoid toilet fees, though I growl slightly less when I do find myself paying. And I still show fee-dodgers how to find them on my tour. But I also pass on what I have learned.

In the end it all comes down to education and freedom of choice. Should our tax-dollars (or pounds) give us the right to demand access to loos? Or are we better off with privatized solutions that might cost us a bit more, but deliver quality of service? And who should decide? 

Back to the problem of education. Most people want the freedom to pee, but they don't want to take the action of campaigning for better toilets or privatization. In fact, most people probably don't think about who is behind the toilet they are using. And it would perhaps be a strange thing for people to think about that all the time (though it has done me a world of good!)

In the ideal world that Hope and Bobby imagine "people could pee for free wherever they like as long as they like with whomever they like."(though this brings us dangerously close to the subject of open defecation, which is a whole other issue. And one that Urinetown gracefully avoids.) 

Urinetown will be at the St James Theatre from 22 February- 3 May. Go see it if you can!