Warning this post contains graphic detail: if you don’t like that sort of thing don’t read it.
Travelling the world including Europe, Morocco, Turkiye, India and the Middle East has given me much experience of using squat-style toilets,‘Arab’ or ‘Asian’ toilets, hole-in-the-ground toilets, or ‘French’ toilets, as we used to call them in the ‘80s when France was exotic and foreign. Such toilets are often the bane of British people’s holiday, ‘oh Gah, those toilets,’ but I am now one of those people who queue up for the squat toilet. Here’s why I’ve converted:
1.Squatting is a much more natural position to defecate – it comes out easier
2.Some even say that western-style toilets are to blame for bowel cancer because sitting doesn’t allow you to expel fully and properly. I don’t know if it’s true but I’ll reproduce that
3.Squatting regularly is good for almost every muscle in your body
4.When you’ve got your period, ladies, you are actively expelling the waste more effectively as you are squeezing it out. Which has got to be better right?
5. It’s much more effective (forget hygienic) to wash your private parts with water after you have urinated or defecated than wipe them, and you don’t need an extra contraption called a bide
6.When the weather is hot you get the opportunity to wash regularly down there (not to mention very helpful at ladies’ period time)
7. It’s more environmentally friendly to NOT use toilet paper. Although – to be fair – a lot of Turkish toilets also have toilet paper to dry your private parts, which, I must admit, I am all for. Soggy knickers is the only drawback.
8.You have a much more regular intimate relationship with your private parts than when you sit on a toilet, as when you squat and clean you are literally looking right at them. You can spot any changes or abnormalities more easily which, as you get older, you should be doing
9.It’s more hygienic in public toilets because the only thing that touches the toilet is your feet.
But how do you actually use them? ‘I hate getting my feet all wet!’ I hear you cry.
After much practice, trial and error, I can advise you. Of course I can only talk from a woman’s point of view, but I do supervise my son, so I can advise men also.
Turn around (yes, like when you sit on the seated toilet) and place your feet on the feet plates with toes about level with the front, so your bum will be roughly over the hole when you squat.
If you’re wearing a skirt, pull it up and gather it around your waist and hold it there, and pull your knickers down to your knees, not ankles
If wearing trousers pull them UP AT THE ANKLES and take them (and knickers) down at the same time so they gather around your knees and no parts drape on the floor.
Squat as low as you can (I.e. a full squat, called malasana in yoga.)
Have your feet flat on the floor
Don’t tip toe or try to hold a high squat
If you can’t fully squat ask yourself why and practice
Do your business
Fill the jug with water
Peer through your legs to look at your private parts
Hold your left hand between your legs (via the front not the back) and over the toilet bowl. With your right hand carry the jug and also reach through your feet and pour water over your left hand so it is wetted making a cup shape with the hand so it holds some water while simultaneously wiping your private parts with your left hand.
Pour gently so you don’t splash.
Women (men skip to the next point) wipe front to back or sort of diagonally to the side so you don’t touch your bum hole
When you’re happy your front bits are clean (half a jug to a full jug is a good guide) do the same with your back parts
Dry with tissue (women, front then back)
Or just shake
Pull clothes up
Turn around
Flush toilet with flush or with jug of water
Clean toilet if necessary
Leave cubicle
Wash hands with soap in sink (not with jug and tap in cubicle)
Done.
Some toilets have a hose pipe instead of a jug but I would advise against aiming it at your private parts and squirting, if you want to avoid getting soaked. Use the method above, wetting your left hand with the hose instead of the jug.
In Turkiye some European style toilets have a built-in ‘bum wash.’ A jet of water shoots out of the back of the toilet aimed at your bum hole. These are a compromise. You need to use them in a similar fashion, using your hand as a cup to catch the water and wipe, as they rarely point in exactly the right place and if they do, often that alone is not enough to clean you.
Hey presto.
Squat toilets all the way for me now. I’ll see you in that queue. Which one are you choosing?
Er, while writing this post I stumbled upon this. A whole blog dedicated to using the toilet while travelling.
Having spent nearly two years in and out of living in a van, with a hyperactive child, aged two to four years old, I learnt the hard way what was needed on the trip; what was missing; what was superfluous; what worked and what didn’t work in terms of organising the space and so on. If you are planning to live in a van; build a campervan; or go on an extended trip WITH YOUNG KIDS, I have some tips that will hopefully make your life easier, or help with building or packing. These recommendations are for summer living, but I can make recommendations for winter too if you are interested, just let me know. And this list mainly revolves around making life easier with the kids, rather than being a list of mechanical and caravanning essentials. That is another list for someone else. That I ignore.
So, 30 essentials I would recommend:
1.Easy-to-erect awning for essential shade.
Shading in Zagora, Morocco.
When it gets really hot, van dwellers search for shade like a drug. If you can carry some with you, it definitely makes summers more pleasant, and keeps the kids out of the sun.
2.One of those plastic weave rugs you can throw out the door and the kids can play on.
Play Doh. Halkidiki, Greece.
Most people take a fold-up table and chairs when they go camping, but young kids want to play on the floor. Having a carpet means you can keep them cleaner, at least some of the time. Our rule was that ‘indoor toys’ were allowed to go outdoors if played with on the carpet. It seemed essential to have a separation of indoor and outdoor toys because access to water to clean the toys is not always easy, and dirty or sandy toys hanging around in a small space is horrid. Outdoor toys belonged in the car ‘boot’ and indoor toys stayed clean on the carpet and were packed away under the sofa after. Yes, that was the idea anyway.
3.Floor space inside.
Trying to play in a campervan with no floor space.
If you are building your own campervan or adapting one you have, and you have young kids, I can definitely recommend trying to plan some empty floor space (or a platform of sorts) where they can play inside also. We used to have a seated table area and a sofa area, and almost zero floor space, but we took out the seating area and made about 1.5m square empty area which could be multifunctional. My son could play on the floor, especially useful if its raining outside (or you want to contain the kids inside because they are causing trouble outside- a frequent occurrence for us). We could also erect a fold-up table there and sit at the sofa and eat, or one of us could lay on a mat and nap there in the breeze.
4.Duplo.
Duplo dreams.
Our son is four and getting into Lego now but Duplo is a much better bet in a van, despite being larger pieces to store. Lego is much too small and bitty for van life. And heaven-forbid it finds its way outside. Duplo is easy to find, easy to pack away and easy to clean.
5.Toy Cars.
Building empires, Çanakkale, Turkey.
Our son’s favourite most-used toys at the moment are his toy cars and transporter for which we often construct makeshift ramps around the camp.
6.Bucket, spade and dump truck.
Digging. Cappadocia.
We have spent a good few months where, as soon as we parked the van our son would be out of his seat and out of the van, digging in the sand/ dirt/ gravel/ mud with his beach toys, happy as Larry. Apart from some sticker books, most of the other toys I brought with us were superfluous. Jigsaws, puzzles, activity books, board games, colouring books, have all failed to interest. (I thought magnetic alphabet was a great idea because we could stick them on the van, but then my son scratched the paint-work with them and they were banned). In the house we do puzzles and board games all the time, but when the outdoors is available, more active-outdoorsy-play seems to capture.
7.Kids books and audio books.
Reading.
I’ve brought about ten books (story books and learn to read books) and we regularly ditch books and grandmas send more, because we cannot find English language books on route. About ten is more than enough to cycle. Audiobooks are obviously an amazing idea: we are only just discovering them and my son is not taking to them yet.
8.Octopus clothes dryer
Daily clothes drying. Datça peninsula, Turkey.
This is really useful to hang the swimming clothes on daily, or to hang the kids clothes on that you are hand-washing daily, when access to a washing machine is scarce. We carry line and pegs too but this little contraption has been so handy because we can hang it on the wing mirror of the van as soon as we are parked, or the hook in the bathroom when we are driving, and the clothes dry in no time.
9.Garden trug.
I wish campsite showers were this nıce.
The trug has multiple functions as kids bath, paddling pool, washing up and laundry bowl. It can also act as ‘random stuff storage tidy’ when you’re traveling.
10.Large, high-sided bowls for feeding the kids.
There isn’t a lot of space in a camper van to make a mess. And spilled food can get forever stuck in crevices. Meal times are actually quite stressful. High-sided but sturdy-bottomed dishes (like a dog bowl) meant less spilled on the seat, or floor, or the furnishings. It also means you can do soupy dinner or dry dinner using the same item. Less stuff to carry.
11.Organic sugar-free peanut butter and vegan chocolate spread.
These two foodstuffs ended up as a staple on our trip, and when we found it, we stocked up. Even if the fridge was broken, or empty, or switched off, when our son cried out ‘I’m hungry now!’ I could climb into the back of the van and make a sandwich and stretch the journey time out some more, without it involving a sugar-high of sweets and biscuits from a petrol station.
12.Swimming/ beach shoes.
Much needed beach shoes. Saklikent Gorge, Turkey.
We spend a lot of time on rocky beaches or hiking through canyons, so water shoes are essential.
13.Swimming T shirts.
Not getting burnt. Akchour Falls, Morocco.
I do not really like suncream and nor does my son. A much better alternative is to cover up. My son has spent every summer in the water wearing a lycra swimming top and consequently has no sunburn at all.
14.Cigarette lighter extension cable.
Despite building our camper van ourselves and choosing where the plug sockets are placed, we still find occasion where we need a socket in a different place or an appliance in a different place (e.g. the navigator or the fan). Our 2m one has been really useful and its not something you can find on route.
15.English plug adapter.
Our campervan has several UK 240v sockets which we use almost exclusively to change our laptops, which are UK lap tops, with UK plugs. But when your laptop charging cable breaks in Spain and you have to buy a replacement that has a Spanish plug, do you think you can find a EU to UK adapter in Spain? No.
16.Velcro.
This is useful to fix things or attach things to other things. For example we have used it to attach the curtains to the wall, so they don’t flap around when driving, to fix up mosquito net semi-successfully. (Gaffa or Gorilla tape is also essential).
17.Rubber at various thickness.
We spent a year carrying boxes of tools and spares that we never used, and the most useful thing in it, by far, was this. Basically you can use it as a packer. And it’s flexible and waterproof. We found our toilet was fitted too low and kept pinging off the wall-mounting. We fixed it on route by using 5mm rubber sheet cut into strips as a packer to raise it off the ground. And we put locks on the cupboard doors, using 2mm rubber as a discreet packer. Very useful.
18.Fuses.
I’m now verging into mechanical and caravanning territory but I do know we have blown and changed various fuses on route, and the type of fuses for our solar system baffle any electrician we have come across outside of Europe. You cannot get them.
19.Mosquito net.
Don’t eat me.
Our camper van has no mosquito screens so we bought a hanging net which we get out at night and hook over the bed in the worst of the mosquito season. How many beds do we have? Two. Why did we buy one net? Because it was quite expensive. Bloody wish we had forked out on the second net. By the way, mosquitos are worse in areas with stagnant water like lagoons and creeks, and they usually only bother you for about an hour at dusk.
20.Hair bands.
It is often surprisingly difficult to find these on route, yet with long hair, in the heat, I find they are essential. They can also double up as curtain ties; for sorting games or toy; or securing open food packets.
21.Coconut oil.
There really isn’t room to bring lots of toiletries and beauty products. Nor is it de rigeur. We carry one shampoo, one conditioner, an olive oil soap, one shaving foam, one toothpaste, one bicarb, one hairbrush, Calpol for emergencies, disposable razors, nail clippers, tweezers, one sunscreen, one coconut oil. Coconut oil doubles as food stuff and moisturiser, and you can make your own sunscreen with this and zinc oxide. Have I done it? No? I just carry the ingredients around with me, wishfully. I have minimal makeup with me, for which I am far too sweaty, and too much in-and-out-of-the-shower, sea, or pool to bother with.
22.Muslin squares.
Breakfast on a muslin square. The ancient city of Lybre, Turkey.
Self explanatory. Useful as kids’ bibs; dad’s sweat rag; seat covers at meal times; kids’ picnic mat; kids’ bandana; sunshade in the buggy.
(Oh and yeah, I brought the buggy. But mainly because my child is hyperactive and extremely difficult to go in any shop with, unless restrained. Ordinarily I would only bother bringing the buggy for babies. Most places we go the terrain is not suitable. A sling is better).
23.First Aid Kit.
Obviously there is going to be a minor accident at some point. It’s useful. We’ve got some basic medicine in their as well. Antibiotics, anti-histamine, indigestion remedies have been great in emergencies. Generally though, we have found you can access what basic medical aid you need wherever you are. Even in a remote town in Morocco, where my son had a terrible cough that wouldn’t shift, we walked into the medical centre and they saw him straight away and gave me some children’s antibiotics for free.
24.The doomsday book of medicine.
A great directory for dealing with health ailments on the journey. The author, a qualified medical doctor and prepper, advises a list of essentials to carry and how to treat a list of common ailments yourself, from snake bites to wound care; diarrhea to head trauma; UTIs to anxiety.
25.A 12v fan.
After having to abort one summer in the van and move into a house because it was just too hot to sleep at night, for the next summer we bought a 12v fan (well actually we bought two, but one died-a-death as soon as we used it for 8 hours straight. The one that fared well was the Fan-tastic Endless Breeze 12v fan). It saved us in the height of summer.
26.Lots of cloth shopping bags.
Useful for shopping, but also great to hang fruit and vegetables in the kitchen (a fruit bowl is a pain in a moving vehicle); great to store toys in: choke-hazard-free; also really useful to sort clothes into different categories in the cupboard for easy access.
27.A reusable water bottle each.
Initially, we were getting through so much single-use-plastic it was disgusting. It also means you can all take a drink to bed with you that doesn’t spill. Trust me, there are a lot of spillages. In a small space. Over multiple items. In crevices. Enough to bring you to tears.
28.Sheets and a blanket instead of a duvet and duvet cover.
It is more versatile. You can wash the (very sweaty) sheets quickly and easily, and you can pack the blanket away when its too hot and just use the sheet.
29.A cagoule in a bag each.
For rainy showers, stored by the van door.
30. ‘Piddle pads’
Sleeping in the car seat with ink on leg. Sahara, Morocco.
Piddle Pads are waterproof, washable, cloth inserts that fit in the child car seat to catch any wee-wee accidents. And drink spills. You need two on rotation. I only had one, which was not that useful once it had been wee-weed on. If you are potty training you also need two waterproof mattress protectors. Or you can buy disposable incontinence sheets. Very useful to slip under a child who falls asleep on the campervan sofa with no nappy on. On the subject of wee wee, obviously you need the potty. That goes without saying.
I hope that helps somewhat on your trip-planning. Any questions or suggestions please comment below. I’d be interested to hear tips from others traveling or living in a van with young kids.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, you need a six tonne van to carry all this. 😉
I got an email the other day for an academic conference session called Intimate Ethnographies in Multispecies Lifeworlds. This important discussion is due to be held next spring at the American Association of Geographers conference in Denver, Colorado, and is being organised by Katie Gillespie and Yamini Narayanan. ‘What on earth is that?’, some of you ask, including me. OK, so let us break it down. Ethnography is when you study a population through living with them. And intimate ethnographies must be when you do that in very close quarters. So, for example, an intimate ethnography of a ‘tribe’ or ‘subculture’ might involve studying them through living with them, perhaps living in the same house, living in the same room even, and conducting their daily routines with them, as they do. OK, next- multispecies lifeworlds– here is the idea that we are studying the lives, experiences, thoughts and feelings – ways of being- of not just humans, but other species. And not just one species, but more than one, and our coexistence.
I read on with interest. The session organisers show a particular interest in auto-ethnography. Which, yes, you have it, means an ethnography of yourself, or your life(world). ‘Ooh’, I thought excitedly, ‘that’s what I am doing’. I always felt I could not help but be a sociologist in my own life. This is why I started to blog. I had not thought of my writing as auto-ethnographic before, but it is slowly becoming that way.
Then I saw the phrase ‘attention to uneven power structures’ and I thought again, that’s my interest. In any given situation I study, I am always interested in who has power and who does not, and how that plays out. Katie and Yamini go on to claim that ‘Centering lives lived in close relation, in multispecies lifeworlds, allows for a politicization of these relationships and the contexts in which they unfold’. I am aware that almost all of our perspectives give precedence and power to humans over any other animals, as a base assumption. Animals are considered to be secondary, second-class, ‘sub’ human. The way we construct knowledge- or the way we think about, and understand, ourselves and our time on this planet -is inherently ‘species-ist.’ So, these geographers call for us to think more about humans’ relationship, coexistence, symbiosis with the animal world, and the multiple species in it, and to apply a political lens to this study. They invite us to ask: who is the ‘underdog’ here? What are the ‘power structures’? How are they uneven or biased in favour of humans? What are the consequences of this? How can we think differently about this?
One of the specific questions they ask researchers to tackle is: – What might an intimate ethnography look like with those animals closest to us—for instance, how might we think about ethnographies of those with whom we share our lives, our homes?
Well, here goes.
An intimate ethnography of human-insect-vanlife-life-worlds
Sikia, Halkidiki. Mount Olympus at background. Author’s own photo.
Living in a campervan for months on end, moving from place to place, means having a very different relationship with the natural environment (and the creatures in it) than you do living in a house. This experience has made me think a lot, specifically, about the insect world and our relationship to it, because, living in a van in the woods; on the beach; in a field; up a mountain; by a stream, we come into contact with various, and multiple, insects on a regular basis. When I lived and worked in London, when I reflect back on it, I rarely saw or thought about an insect*.
Last winter I read a feature article in the New York Times called The Insect Apocalypse Is Here. This piece summarised scientists’ incredibly worrying hypotheses that overall insect numbers are decreasing rapidly, year on year, with potentially apocalyptic consequences. Reading this article, has also informed my shifting relationship with insects. The journalist invites us to cast our minds back to when we were young (presumably assuming a readership born in the 1970s and ’80s), where he tells the story of a science teacher who recalls when he was a child, driving (and cycling) through the summer countryside in his home town in Denmark and the number of bugs striking the windshield (or his face!) was in the thousands. But today, that same experience, might be merely tens of insects. If that. If I cast my mind back, when I was a kid, living in a house in a semi-rural area of Southern England, this used to involve co-existing, to some extent, with various insects. In the autumn the spiders would come in. Big ones, small ones, hairy ones, ginger ones. There was always one in the bath, or one in the corner of the room. In the summer there were the flies that would invariably bother you in the kitchen; when you were trying to cook; the moths that would come in around the porch light at dusk; the ‘daddy long legs’ who would dive bomb you in the hall way; the dragon flies around the pond. Towards the end of my time in London- a large but relatively green metropolis- when I think about it, I rarely encountered insects in my home (except the bed bugs that had been ‘imported from India’, but that is another story all together).
Living in a van, however, it was necessary to coexist with various insect populations. Everywhere we traveled, there would always be some kind of insect population making themselves known to us, getting in our space, as we got in theirs. Interestingly we tended to be aware of one type of insect species at a time, as if they had different geographies, or they took it in turns to taunt us. We had bees in the mountains of Fethiye; mosquitos on the beach on the Albanian Riviera; beetles in the forest in Alanya; locusts in the grasslands in Halkidiki; sandfleas at the harbour of Andriake; flies in the farmlands in Urfa; scorpions in the Sahara dessert. As we failed to install any mosquito screens in our campervan and the temperature inside in summer was often 40 degrees or more, the open windows and roof vents meant there was no getting away from the insects. We had to at least try to get along with them. In the beginning we would spray the campervan with insecticide (indeed some campsites we stayed on sprayed the entire campsite with insecticide), but we soon learnt this was futile: it didn’t seem to remove the insects, only kill some of them and then more would appear. So we realised this was unsustainable, not to say inhumane, and we began to try to tolerate them.
Bugs and Beetles, by Naomi Adams
Another thing I became very aware of -in addition to the different insect geographies- was that they tended to have quite discernible daily rhythms too. Cicadas would sing all day, and then would instantly go to sleep, or just stop talking, at dusk**; flies would be attracted by food so would come at meal times; bees by water when we were washing; mosquitoes would come at dusk, feed from us over the period of about an hour, and then retreat, leaving us in peace for the night. Only when there was a plague of mosquitoes (i.e. problematically large numbers) did they continue to bother us through the night. Well, of course, I guess it makes sense: if there were more of them, then it would take longer for each to get their turn to feed. I began to change my attitude towards insects, as I began to have a relationship with them, as I began to understand them, and their needs. I read that mosquitoes take your blood to feed their babies, and I thought ‘oh well, in that case, fair enough’. Wouldn’t you do anything to feed your baby? We tried to avoid being bitten, through natural means- covering up with long clothing at dusk; covering my son’s bed with netting; burning citronella; sleeping in the path of a fan, and if there was a real plague of them we would cover ourselves in DEET to repel the worst of them. However, as time went on, I began to tell myself to just let them be, let them do their thing, let them feed. Just try to ignore the itch. It would be gone or replaced by a different itch in a few days. This was just the cycle of life.
The ants of Andalucia
When we were in Spain it rained. And rained. And an extended family of ants congregated in our shower. Our first reaction was horror and we wanted rid of them- they were in our space. But my partner, who is Muslim, said ‘in Islam you are not supposed to kill ants’. So we didn’t. We soon realised they came in when it was raining hard, they had their meeting (literally convening in a circle) and then when the rain stopped they would go back outside, and we were able to shower. Phew. This brings a new meaning to flat sharing.
An ant conference in Spain, author’s own photo
The Fethiye bees
That is not to say that I was not challenged by the presence of some insects on various occasions. Flying beetles dive-bombing through the roof lights at dusk was quite panic-making, and we were not prepared to share our space with these blighters. The ‘Fethiye bees’ was another strange encounter. When traveling in southern Turkey we parked at an idyllic spot in the forest in the mountains above Butterfly Valley (interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, said to be lacking in butterflies now). We planned to cook dinner while our son played outside. I went outside to do some washing up in a bucket while my partner was cooking, but by the time I had finished the washing up I had about ten bees around me. When I finished the washing up they swarmed the tap, the washing up sponge and the pile of wet gravel where I had poured my washing up water. ‘OK, they are just thirsty’ I said to myself. But gradually they started to surround the campervan, sitting on the van and coming inside. They weren’t just thirsty, they were watching us. Then my son came inside. This was strange because he never came inside voluntarily. When I asked him why he had come inside he said dismissively: ‘oh, just too many bees’. He had left all his toys on the mound where he was playing and when I went to collect them, the toys were crawling with bees. I looked around. The bees were nowhere else to be seen. Only on our belongings. This was the point at which I said ‘OK we are leaving.’ The way in which they were surrounding us, watching us, taking interest in us, marked unusual behaviour for me. This seemed bizarre behaviour for bees: usually we coexist, but they show little interest in us. Perhaps we had disturbed their nest? But they were not stinging us, not threatening, just showing too much interest. This was too eerie. We packed up and drove off, driving fifty miles down the mountain and out of the forest into an urbanised area. That was better: just species like us here.
Tawny mining bee, photo by Penny Metal
The angry locust
This takes me to my last story, or encounter: the angry locust***. In Greece we spent nearly a month camping in abandoned campsites on the peninsula of Halkidiki. The economic downturn had obviously affected tourism and holiday-making and more than one campsite had closed-down in this region. We parked up on the beach near Sikia, in one such abandoned campsite, in the long, wild grass, under the shade of a tree and started to assemble our camp. We were aware of the noise of ‘cicadas’, in the long grass, which was a noise we were accustomed to. However as we settled in our camp we realised it wasn’t multiple ‘locust’ sounds coming from all around, but the noise was localised: it was coming from only one patch of grass. It was incredibly loud, and incessant and very close to our camp. We peered into the long grass and could not believe our eyes. The creature we saw was almost the size of a small rodent. But it was an insect. And it seemed to be shouting at the top of its ‘voice’. When we peered closer it would stop, but as soon as we moved away it started again. We sat for a while outside, but he disturbed our peace. We decided to go inside and have a nap, but the noise continued and seemed to get closer. We couldn’t sleep. Then I thought I heard another sound, this time coming from the opposite side of the van. I went out to investigate and indeed there seemed to be a response of sorts, coming from long grass the other side of the van. ‘I think we are in his patch’. I said. ‘We are parked in the way between him and his lady, and he’s not happy’. As the noise got louder and angrier, again, we agreed to move. We packed up the van and drove about fifty yards away to another pitch and parked up. We then walked slowly and quietly back to the pitch with the locust and indeed the noise had stopped. Whatever the matter was, he was quiet now. One nil to the locust.
Meadow grasshopper, Lewes, England, photo by Penny Metal
All power to the insects
These are trivial stories of encounters with insects but I want to draw attention to the power structures, as Katie and Yamini ask us to do. For all-too-long we humans have wielded power over insects (and indeed most other species), with little concern for their welfare, or even concern for how much we need them. As the article about the insect apocalypse points out, we are dependent on insect populations to pollinate our crops, to process our waste, as a food source for other animals. Without them we will starve and be neck deep in shit. But our attitude for far too long has been: Not In My Back Yard. As we swat that swatter; spray that Raid; pump that insecticide; jet that pesticide; spread that Rose Clear; shake that ant power, little by little, we contribute to this holocaust. Van-life has fundamentally changed that relationship for me. I draw the line at flying beetles in my hair, but other than that, live and let live. I learned to live with insects, to the extent that, now I am in a house in the city again, I miss them. Not only should we learn to coexist with insects, but, as with the bees; the mosquitoes; the ants; the angry (or horny?) locust in my stories, we should be curbing and adapting our lives, our behaviour around theirs: we should be allowing them to take the stage. Because one day we might miss them.
Clockwork Bubble Bee, by Naomi Adams
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Insect Trivia:
Crickets, locusts, grasshoppers and cicada: what is the difference? Locusts are a type of grasshopper, both categorised as ‘Acridoidea family’ in the order ‘Orthoptera’. Crickets are also of the Orthoptera order, but crickets are typically wingless, and they are omnivorous: eating plants, smaller insects and larvae. Locusts and grasshoppers look similar to each other, they both have wings, and are both herbivores but locusts differ from grasshoppers in their ability to swarm. These insects make a sound by rubbing their wings together and this is called stridulation. Cicadas on the other hand, are ‘true bugs’ from the order Hemiptera, they are dark, stout insects with large heads and transparent wings. They look more like a beetle. They come in two major variations: annual cicadas, and periodical cicadas. Periodical cicadas (only sited in North America) are often commonly referred to as the ’17 year locust.’ They spend 13 to 17 years as ‘nymphs’ living under ground, feeding from the juices of plant roots, before emerging- in number- in spring, when the soil reaches exactly 64 degrees Fahrenheit, when they climb up trees, shed their brown nymph skin and emerge as a cicada (most commonly black, with red eyes and orange wing veins). The male cicadas, the loudest insect around, then ‘sing’ by producing a sound from a pair of built-in drums called tymbals at the base of their abdomens. The females are attracted by the sound and after mating the females lay eggs burrowed in the twigs of the tree, before dying. The eggs then fall to the ground and hatch into nymphs who burrow into the ground, where they will then live for around 17 years. There is nothing trivial about that.
Photographs featured:
Feature photographs are courtesy of Penny Metal and Naomi Adams. Penny Metal is an artist who loves and photographs insects. She has published a book consisting of photographs of the insects of Warwick Gardens, a small park in Peckham ,South London. You can see more of her photos and buy the book here. Naomi Adams is an artist and illustrator. Her relief pictures of bugs and beetles made from minute, found-objects such as beads, earrings and clock parts, can be bought here.
** The sound Cicadas make is actually made by their abdomen not their mouth so technically they are not ‘talking,’ but I am anthropomorphising for dramatic effect.
***After researching, it is most likely it was a Cicada that we saw, not a locust, but humans often confuse the two.
Last year we spent nearly three months in Morocco, on a road trip in our Mercedes 609 camper. My partner and I, and our two year old son, traveled to some of the most remote towns and villages (see our travel map for where we’ve been), met some of the warmest, most welcoming people and saw some of the most stunning scenery we have seen in our life. I began to feel quite settled and accustomed to the way of life in this ‘developing world,’ North African, Muslim country.
Of course, there were some things we missed from the UK (high quality plumbing and drainage being one key thing). And of course, this is another one of those glib checklists which doesn’t do justice to the complexity of Moroccan life. A main proviso is: I recognise Morocco is a huge and diverse country and we didn’t visit many ‘modern’ cities, so really I am writing about rural Morocco. Nevertheless here are ten things, in no particular order, I celebrate from our time there.
A convenience store in Merzouga, Sahara
1. Supermarkets are rare.
I do not just mean huge hypermarkets, I mean small supermarkets as well. Outside of the modern cities there were neither. We became accustomed to seeking out ‘market day’ where we would buy all our fresh fruit and vegetables and eggs for the week, occasionally fish at the fish market if we were near the coast, or meat at the butchers. Other goods we needed we bought at local grocery stores, hardware stores and so on, as and when we needed them. This way of shopping is not as convenient as the big-once-a-week-supermarket-shop we have been used to. Indeed when we saw a supermarket it would ignite a kind of ‘guilty pleasures’ excitement in us. However, we reflected on how supermarkets really distance you from the produce you are buying and the processes that got it there. We came to value shopping locally, and this had other environmental benefits which I go on to detail.
Dry goods sold self service in a supermarket
2. Packaging was minimal and hence packaging waste was minimal.
As supermarkets were few and far between, packing waste was much less ubiquitous. Having banned plastic bags way back in 2016, if you asked for a bag in Morocco it was paper, or made of recycled fibres. Fruit and veg bought in the market were never wrapped in plastic but bought loose, put in brown paper bags or you are expected to bring your own bag. Even eggs were sold with no packaging: you had to bring your own egg box. Often if you bought rice, pasta or pulses from local stores they were stored in large containers and decanted. Even the supermarkets, when you found one, sold dry goods like this. As a consequence of being ‘poor’, in rural Morocco, ‘consumption’ was minimal, but therefore waste was minimal. ‘Poor’ rural Moroccans lived a life that did not involve buying ‘stuff’ every day. To generate waste you have to consume and discard. Moroccans we met did not consume pre-packaged fruit juices or fizzy drinks but drank tea, water or homemade fruit water. Food waste was minimal and would compost down to nothing. There was also more re-use. Any glass bottles sold were collected and returned for refilling. When things broke in the home/ on the campsite they were fixed, not replaced with a new bit of plastic and the old lump of plastic discarded. Indeed, at the local market, stalls could be found selling secondhand necessities: tools, haberdashery, hardware, bricolage, clothes, toys and parts of toys that the West discards. Even toilet behaviour is more ecological, washing with water, minimising toilet tissue waste. As a tourist in this landscape I was painfully aware of my levels of consumption and the waste I generated. The packaging generated from a city supermarket shop; a new item of clothing or plastic toy; a cup of take-out coffee; a thousand wet wipes used for all sins (at that time we realised we had a ‘packet a day habit,’ that we have now gladly beaten); all added up to make a shameful pile in the bin. A bin that otherwise contained tea leaves and an old knob of bread, which, actually, a dog would eat anyway. For locals, municipal garbage collection appeared to be sparse anyway, so it was imperative to generate as a little waste as possible. Tourists were the point at which waste became unmanageable. As we spent our time travelling and wild camping, we realised that campsites were essentially places we paid to take our waste.
Hiking with a guide in Dades gorge
3. Everyone is a parent: ‘the village raises the child’.
This African proverb was very much in force in Morocco. It took me a long time to relax and trust in the notion, but everywhere we went in Morocco my toddler was safe and looked after. Children were of central importance and this was obvious. As soon as he stepped in public, a young child would be the centre of everyone’s attention. Men, women and other children were hard-wired to notice a young child in public, consider his welfare, and collectively take responsibility for his safety. If our son was in danger of running into the traffic others would save him; if we were hiking and our energies were waning, someone would carry him; if he was misbehaved in someone’s shop or restaurant they would reprimand him; when he was climbing in the park the older children helped him; when he smiled everyone would praise him. I realised how much weight is taken off your shoulders if a community around you is parenting your child, rather than feeling like their daily upbringing is solely your responsibility.
Mercedes Varios on market day in Moulay Idriss, Morocco
4. Every other vehicle is a Mercedes Vario.
I’ve thrown this in because our campervan is a Mercedes Vario (an old 609d), and we are fans of these trusty German-built machines. The Vario is the work-horse of Morocco. It is used to transport goods for market day; it is everyone’s work van; it is used on farms; it is the public bus. In fact, it took us weeks to understand: why did everyone keep waving at us on the roadside? They thought we were a bus and were hailing us down.
Fetching water from the spring
5. Spring water is free, provided by pump at the roadside, in the town or village.
In the UK you find the occasional public water tap, but in rural Morocco fresh spring water was available free everywhere (as we have found in Greece and Turkey also). This is most likely because many people would not have piped water to their homes (and the piped water wouldn’t be drinking water anyway). Living in a van and needing access to water to fill our water tank, and to drink, made us hyper-aware of public access to water wherever we went. In some countries we found the only way to access water was to pay to stay on a campsite, or to ask at a petrol station. In some places in Europe the petrol stations removed their tap connections so people couldn’t access the water without permission. This made me think about how we arrived at this state of affairs where water is a private commodity and access to it is restricted? And how we just let this happen. Access to drinking water is a basic human right. We look at the woman fetching water from the pump in the village and label this ‘backward’ or underdeveloped. And of course, if you have to walk miles to the pump that is a real problem, and of course, if the water is contaminated, that is a problem, but there is nothing backward about a system where you collect water at the source. There is something quite backward about collecting water; storing it (where consequently it gets dirty); spending money and energy resources cleaning it in huge treatment works (to make it drinkable but basically stripping it of any health benefits); then piping it to every home, so that people can then defacate in it and then go to the supermarket and buy mineral water from a corporation that has essentially stolen the access to natural spring in the mountain nearby. We should have free access to local spring water at the source, and we should harvest rain water locally for washing and sanitation.
The view from our camper in the Rif mountains (no that’s not a painting)
6. Epic scenery.
The landscape of Morocco was absolutely, mind-blowingly stunning. As we traveled the country we saw every kind of landscape imaginable from the waterfalls of the Rif mountains in the north; to the snowy central Atlas mountains;Dades and Todgha gorges; the cliff formations and beaches of the west coast; the Sahara dessert of the south and east. Some landscapes were truly otherworldly too (or only the stuff of movies) such as the Mars-like landscapes of Tissint and Tata; the dry desert ocean beds of Es Sfalat; the Precambian granite rocks of Tafraoute; the blue city Chefchaouen and the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs. In fact, Ouarzazate is home to several film studios and many science fiction, fantasy, historical films and series are filmed here, including Star Wars, Gladiator and Game of Thrones.
Pates de Singes, Dades valley
7. Alcohol was available but not culturally ubiquitous.
In my circles, everyone I know wishes they drank less alcohol. But living in the UK, this is easier said than done, as alcohol is a part of the culture of socialising. When I lived and worked in London, ‘going for a drink’ peppered the working week, and dominated the weekend, as every other shop-front was a bar or pub in my gentrified London neighbourhood. Even with kids, ‘going for a drink’ was a likely occurrence, made possible by pubs with ‘beer gardens’, and even indoor playrooms. This didn’t feel particularly healthy, nor sustainable, physically or financially. In my circles there were strategies to reduce the amount of alcohol you consume, either drinking a soft drink in the pub while everyone else is ‘getting pissed’; or alternatively, not leaving the house. “I’m trying not to drink” was a common reason given for reclusivity. How weird is that? That you have to lock yourself away and avoid the company of friends in order to avoid the temptation of drinking too much alcohol or getting in debt? Another strategy involves moving to a Muslim country where socialising does not revolve around alcohol. In rural Morocco there were no pubs or bars just cafes and restaurants. You could buy alcohol in the big supermarkets in the big cities, and somewhere in rural areas if you asked around. Some campsites we stayed on served alcohol in the restaurant but it wasn’t offered to you, you had to ask for it. But “what do they do for a night out?” I hear you ask? People eat together, and just sit around for hours, just being in each other’s company. Cafes were a hub for communal meetings, and occupying elderly people who sat together watching the world go by. Cafes did not seem concerned with making a profit out of each sale. In Morocco there were no advertisements for this alco-pop or that cold beer; no irresistible ‘3 for 2’ special offers in the supermarket; no wine on the menu (“oh go on then, just the one”); no pub on every corner, the familiar smell of beer, the sound of chinking glasses and drunken laughter beckoning you in, stumbling out at closing time (“not again, 2am!?”). In Morocco I had the odd drink (like, I mean, maybe twice in three months). It was a genuine treat, and the rest of the time alcohol was just not there, and not a part of our day. At first I felt like something was missing (because it is so culturally ingrained), but I did not miss how alcohol is pushed on you in the UK.
Truck with hayload, Ait Benhaddou
8. Rules are made to be broken.
There is something quite freeing about Morocco in the sense that the enforcement of rules is fairly lax. Our particular experience of this- being on a road trip- related to traffic and the rules of the road. Yeah yeah, the UK has rules to keep us safe. But it is tedious isn’t it? In Morocco you can drive about without your seat belt on, you can hang off the bus; sit on the roof or sit on the back of a truck; you can park wherever; you can drive the wrong way up the motorway slip road; you can squeeze your whole family on a motorcycle; you can climb the ruins that say ‘closed’. You can make your own decision as to the danger. Ah, freedom. Yes, perhaps the roads are less safe, but there is something stifling and oppressive about the iron fist that governs UK traffic laws, and increasingly governs public space in general.
Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakech
9. Collective worship.
Morocco is a Muslim country and you are gently reminded of this five times a day when hearing the call to prayer from the mosque. Friday prayer- around lunchtime on Friday- is the weekly occasion to attend mosque and pray collectively. Lots of businesses and shops close on Friday lunchtime for this purpose. However, when we stayed on a campsite on the edge of a small town, Ounagha, just outside Essaouira, we had the most moving experience. Ounagha was a non-descript town that had grown up around a crossroads. The Mosque was placed at the cross roads and the market took place outside the mosque. Other than this was a small parade of shops, a garage, a school, and a campsite. We happened to be in the market in the town at the time of Friday prayer, and when the call sounded, everyone (ok, mostly men) slowly packed up what they were doing and started to walk towards the mosque. Shops shut their doors, market traders covered their wares with a cloth, cars stopped and people got out. The mosque was so full that around thirty people prayed on the floor outside. I am not a religious person but there was something powerful, wholesome and connected about this collective worship and the way in which this collective-coming-together presided over everything else, not least commerce.
Snowy roadside rest stop, High Atlas Mountains
10. Inviting motorway services.
Roadside rest stops were often grand, involving far more than a fuel station, toilet and shop selling junk food, as we are used to in Europe. Perhaps harking back to the days of the caravan routes, Moroccan motorway services often included an extravagant (but usually empty) hotel with swimming pool; almost always a butcher; a restaurant with outdoor seating area and children’s park and invariably a palatial but empty ballroom with a few old men sitting in it drinking tea. Motorway services were not just places where you stopped on a journey, but a destination, especially at the weekend where every man and his family seemed to go to eat in the restaurant, play in the park or even dance in the ball room perhaps?
Fossil hunting in Es Sfalat
Finding value in Morocco.
Morocco is classed as a ‘developing’ country, but many of the things I write about on this list- many of the things we valued about Morocco- exist precisely because it was not ‘developed’ in the way that western-advanced-capitalist countries have developed. That is not to romanticise poverty. Many people in rural Morocco are poor and desperate. Everywhere we went, Moroccans we met admired Turkey and looked to Tayip Erdogan as a their role model. Turkey perhaps represents a dream, a hope, an idea of a modern, functioning, progressive Muslim way of life. Whether Turkey really represents that is another blog post (or thesis), but one rhetorical question we can ask here is, do Moroccans need a version of western capitalist democracy? Do they need reality television; media jobs; supermarkets; divorce; secularism; malls; bottled water; shrink wrapped vegetables; fizzy drinks; pubs; drug problems; CCTV; outsourced childcare; old people’s homes; motorways; 5G; manicured lawns? No. They want their children to be safe, healthy, cared for by those around them, and have enough to eat. Let us try to imagine, what this could look like. Is there is a chance for Morocco, a hope: that there is potential to ‘develop’ in a more environmentally sustainable way, but also a way that is more sustainable in terms of community and sociality?
‘You are not working at the moment then?’ I was recently asked. This is probably something that makes most stay-at-home-mums wince, as you are working so hard on a daily basis you literally fall asleep in your dinner. As a couple who are ‘not currently working’ but raising a toddler ‘on the road’, this question prompted a wider discussion between my partner and I about what is work and, perhaps more explicitly, what is work that is valued?
I’ve written a blog post about how it’s almost impossible to be lazy travelling with a toddler in a campervan, as alongside the work that’s involved in travelling (route planning, driving, packing and unpacking), parenting and daily survival tasks take up the entirety of two adults’ time, and we are still knackered at the end of every day.
However, while we feel like we are constantly cleaning and tidying up in the van, we find we interact with the task more, and appreciate the work done because it becomes our daily focus. When you have children it feels like all you are doing most of the time is cleaning and tidying anyway. However, having to fit paid work in around childrearing and these daily survival tasks makes these tasks feel like ‘extra’ chores rather than what we should focus on. When daily survival tasks feel like extra chores we rush them, we cut corners, we eat badly, the environment suffers (‘I haven’t got time to think about it!’) and we feel unsatisfied, harassed, overburdened.
Alternatively we don’t do these daily survival tasks at all: we outsource them. As I did when I worked a fifty hour week. We work so long we have such little time for child-rearing or cooking and cleaning that we subcontract all or some of these tasks to childminders, cleaners and restaurants. We are then unavoidably alienated from these basic survival activities.
With life on the road we have found those daily chores become our life: preparing food, cooking, washing up, sweeping, making beds, airing furnishings, washing the vehicle and vehicle maintenance, washing the baby, hanging out laundry, washing and grooming ourselves when we find campsites with showers. In London I outsourced every single one of these tasks, I even tended to outsource grooming: with routine visits to beauticians for hair cuts, waxing, pedicure, massage.
When daily survival chores are done by us for us, we focus on them, we appreciate them, we take pride in experiencing them and perfecting the skills involved.
This takes me to a wider connected point about parenting. These daily survival activities are not only appreciated more but they are also the daily activities that our son sees us doing, emulates and takes part in. Without even knowing it, he is learning to cook, how to clean, how to clean and dry clothes. Not only is he learning how to do these tasks in a very real way, moreover he is learning that these tasks exist rather than them being hidden, as they are when they are outsourced. Nor is he learning them in a synthesised way that he might do at nursery (using a pretend washing machine or cutting pretend plastic vegetables).
That’s not to mention he is learning the other tasks that are routinely necessary for surviving Van Life such as filling up the water tank, charging the batteries, emptying the grey waste and the toilet. All these tasks connect us to, and remind us of, our water use, energy consumption and our waste in a way that house dwelling, again, alienates. (More on this in another blog piece).
Of course not everyone has the ability to focus on these tasks because not everyone is able to get away from doing paid work. This is not an attempt to say that we are doing a better job of parenting than anyone else. I think what I want to do is draw attention to the way that capitalism devalues these tasks (which are of course of great value and necessity to us) while valorising paid work, which is in the interests of capital.
Feminist writers have drawn widespread attention to the devaluation of domestic work in the home, referred to as the ‘second shift’ (clearly highlighting its secondary place). However feminist ‘answers’ have usually focused on:
a) giving women equal access to the ‘first shift’ of paid work, and
b) attempting to raise the status of domestic work as akin to the importance of paid work
Rather, perhaps, what we should all be doing is challenging the very notion that paid work is a necessary, useful or desirable pursuit for any of us.
I didn’t start out as an advocate of ‘van-life’. I thought it was going to be a sacrifice: a means to an end; something to endure to be able to travel. I was dreading the confinement of three of us in a small space and the lack of a decent shower or bath. But the longer we spend on the road, and the more we switch from van to house and back to van, the more I appreciate van-life rather than house-dwelling.
Since we have been on the road we tend to travel for a month or so, then stay put for a few weeks. We often stay on campsite but sometimes we rent a holiday-let if we can find one for a good price. We have rented a studio in the Basque Country, a little one-bed holiday flat in Armacao de Pera in the Algarve and a two-bed flat with garden in Los Caños de Meca in Andalucia. We rent a house or flat for a number of reasons: so we can settle and get to know a local area and community there a bit more intimately, to stretch out a bit and sleep in a longer bed (our camper bed is only 5ft 8 inches long), so our toddler can run around in a contained area (our camper is ten square metres in TOTAL) and so we can download films and books on the internet.
And for these things, living in a house is great. But we have found house-dwelling makes us lazy.
We find we very quickly switch between the different ways of living. In a house we fall into:
– constantly doing laundry, even if it’s not really dirty we just wash it anyway
– Leaving the washing up to pile up
– Not tidying up: there’s plenty of space not to
– Staying inside even if it’s quite nice out
– Watching TV and surfing the net excessively, including our toddler
– Going to bed too late
Whereas with van-life we tend to:
-do laundry once a fortnight when we find a campsite with a machine
-Wash up everything after each meal and put it all away- there is nowhere to put dirty dishes down and not enough space to carry spares
– put everything away after its use. Everything -toys, books, clothes, food -has its place. The space becomes claustrophobic if it’s untidy
– Go outside to stretch out to explore at least twice a day if not more
– Never watch TV: we don’t have one
– Surf the net only when we can access WiFi and go to bed much earlier
– Our son goes on his screen much less: maybe less than an hour a day
There is something that feels more wholesome and satisfying about this way of life, on a basic level.
Van-life amplifies our experience of the weather, which we feel connects us with the natural environment more. We are much more aware of the weather and move with it rather than stay indoors and ignore it. Of course a lot of rain is challenging with a toddler who wants to go outside but generally the weather even within one day is more of a mixed bag. Because the van is a small space we go out much more regularly to stretch out. Even if it’s cold we just wrap up. We watch the clouds and the forecast and plan our day around it. And while it can get difficult and claustrophobic if our son is cooped up in the van too long, he’s much happier and therefore more manageable inside when he is going outside most of the day. We find we are much more in-tune with the dawn and dusk also. While we do have electric lights we feel the sunrise and sunset more acutely. We get up with the sunrise in the morning and currently the sun sets at 7, and our son goes to bed in his bunk not long after. We watch one of our downloaded films, read or do some research on the net for a bit, but soon follow, as the temperature drops and the bed at the other end of the bus looks more and more inviting. We find there is no space or inclination for slobbing around half-watching-TV-whilst-inanely-scrolling-Facebook, as we tend to in a house.
The van also amplifies our experience of daily survival tasks such as parenting, cooking and cleaning. While we feel like we are constantly cleaning and tidying when we are on the road, there is a sense of achievement as it feels like the tasks are productive: a focus rather than a distraction from something else that’s got to be done (see my blog post about ‘work’).
Perhaps there is also something about travelling, rather than being stationary where there is always something new- people, scenery, customs- that keeps us active, and makes it impossible to laze about.
I just re-read this post and I can see people reading it thinking, ‘get a job, then house-dwelling does not make you lazy.’ I guess what I am saying is house-dwelling makes us comfortable. But there is a danger in this comfort, in that you can become lazy and passive. Whether doing paid work or not. What I appreciate about van-life is being out of that comfort zone which feels more connected and more free.
With life on the road we have found those daily chores become our life: preparing food, cooking, washing up, sweeping, making beds, airing furnishings, washing the vehicle and vehicle maintenance, washing the baby, hanging out laundry, washing and grooming ourselves when we find campsites with showers. In London I outsourced every single one of these tasks, I even tended to outsource grooming: with routine visits to beauticians for hair cuts, waxing, pedicure, massage.
Without even knowing it, he is learning to cook, how to clean, how to clean and dry clothes. Not only is he learning how to do these tasks in a very real way, moreover he is learning that these tasks exist rather than them being hidden, as they are when they are outsourced. Nor is he learning them in a synthesised way that he might do at nursery (using a pretend washing machine or cutting pretend plastic vegetables).