: Po Corps: I’d give you 10.000 Ariary if you could top this fady..!

Day/Date: Sunday July 25, 2010 (about 4 days into my homestay)
Time: Sometime before dinner, between 6 and 7:30pm
Location: Homestay house/my bedroom
Description: I commit a major Malagasy

So at my homestay we do not have a toilet, we have a kabone. This is a brick structure built around/over a huge hoe dug in the ground. There is a floor built over that too with a much smaller hole, where you do your business…there are pieces of wood or bricks that you use while you squat (balance, aim and thigh strength required) This is behind the house a bit and is only for daytime use.
What do people do at night? --You may ask…
Well since it gets really dark and can get slippery they don’t use the kabone at night but a po instead. A po can be used to spit in after brushing your teeth, it can be used to wash your hands off a bit, it can be used to shave (if you are skilled enough not to spill outside of it) but it’s main use is for #1 and #2! The po is a bucket with a lid. You use it, empty/rinse it out in the morning, let it “air out” during the day and put it in the corner of your room at night.
It is a very personal item…
One night, the night of the 25th, I am studying Malagasy with my host family in the common room. It is starting to get dark and I have to tinkle so I go use the po in my room, and come back to continue studying…
“Knock, knock”
Oh what a surprise! It is our upstairs neighbors…they usually do not come over around that time. They begin to speak Malagasy with my mom and I hear a familiar word…”po”..! Turns out…I brought the wrong po into my room!!
I was mortified!!! They all thought it was hilarious and of course I laughed along with them! Their po was next to my family’s po outside, and it is blue just like mine but in a different shade..! My po was in my Ladosy (shower)… They kept telling my that their po is manga (blue) and that mine is mangamanga (bluish). While I kept trying to ask if I could wash it out before giving it to them, without actually saying I had already used it!!! But that didn’t happen…so they took their po…with my pee in it…
Me = Dumb American. I am so thankful the joke only lasted for 2 days but who knows how many people in out village heard about it!