You First, Brother 3

(Rainbow Gathering, Slovakia 2012)

Part three – Fellowship Formed and the Toilets Explained

     When after four days I was finally bidding farewell to the hippy paradise, I didn’t expect to be back just in couple of days. Who would? So I was walking very slowly to the bus stop, looking at the sleeping camp. The rising sun poured the gold on the scattered sleeping bags, dusty tents and smoky teepees. Few lonely, dirty survivors of yesterday wished me a happy journey. French young poet in a suit and wild tie gave me a piece of chocolate and played for me on a violin few lines from the International.

     And that was good bye.

     Then, couple of days later I was on the road again. Once more I enjoyed the familiar feeling of sweatiness, exhaustion and carsickness (who rode Eastern European busses knows what I’m talking about). But this time I wasn’t alone.

     It was actually Saragrahi who made me to go the second time.

     After coming back home I was very enthusiastic in my reportage and a bit of that enthusiasm got transmitted to my better half. Basically she put it like this:

     “I’m going. Whether you goin’ with me or not.”

     So I could go or not, and I preferred to go. No, it had nothing to do with my insecurity because of all those handsome rastas and hippies walking out there with their beautiful drums, guitars and dreamy eyes. I was just happy to get another chance to re-experience Rainbow.

     We also asked my sister, Ania, to join us, and she was very happy to.

     When we started to get closer to the camp site, the girls felt stressed and a bit awkward. “Are we going to fit? How will we survive the “naked” shower? What about the toilets?” (Oh, yes, Shit Pits! I completely forgot to mention those sweet and cozy places. I will come to it).

     Me however, I felt like coming back home. I was an experienced guide, nonchalant pack leader, Rainbow veteran.

     “On the right you see the Healing Teepee, there, in those bushes are showers… I mean a shower. Single. On the left there is a children kitchen, and here is the main food circle, over there, that white patch, it used to be Krishna’s temple, and I was camping there, by that shrub… There is a funny story…”

     “Could you stop now?” asked Saragrahi.

     “Yeap, please” added Ania.

     Ania’s biggest fear was the toilet. She wasn’t very inspired by my description of it. So first of all it wasn’t even called a toilet, but, as I mentioned before, “a shit pit”. What a picturesque and juicy term.

     When I first heard about it after arriving few days before I imagined a long drainage ditch with a perch and a row of people sitting on it, smoking cigarettes and having a conversation, you know, like in the war movies, in the POW camp.

     The reality was less shocking, though still not very comforting.

     So first of all there was a designated area for it. And the in that area (in the forest) there were small trenches, maybe 6-7 feet long, 1 feet deep, and they were randomly dug around. The rules were – no toilet paper, just water (for a devotee not a big deal I guess), washing hands with ashes, and covering the end product with earth.

    At first I was seriously considering holding on until going back home, but then I managed to get used to it. As long as it was daylight, it wasn’t a problem, but God have mercy on those wretched creatures who were hard-pressed during the night hours and had to roam in the darkness. Poor buggers.

     Anyway, for some reason Ania wasn’t inspired by my description of the “toilets”, but eventually she became believer and in the end she was even openly scorning those, who broke the rules and used that forbidden, bourgeois toilet paper.

    

     Here I wanted to move to the Big Celebration Day, but since the above topic isn’t very elevated, I will continue in the next episode of the Rainbow Adventures.    

    

     To be continued…