A Dark Moment

One thing that will forever be associated in my mind with travelling around in less developed countries is the sound of cats fighting. Everywhere we go, the streets are filled with scrawny, scraggly street cats with half-tails, scratched up faces, and mangy fur. Life is tough for these kitties, they need to battle to get ahead.
I am listening to this exact sound as I get ready for bed in the latest campground of our escapade. I am in the dirty one toilet/one shower bathroom that is supposed to serve the entire population of the campground. I am brushing my teeth, and I have to keep moving because the light is on a 10 second motion timer. I would just give up and brush in the dark, but I don’t want to creep out the other campers. Going to the bathroom is fun, I can hardly get my shorts unbuttoned before I am plunged into total darkness, and the motion sensor for the light doesn’t detect toilet stall movement. Now I am navigating a toilet stall with my shorts around my ankles in the pitch black. I should also mention that there is no toilet seat, and toilet paper can’t be thrown into the toilet, so there is an overflowing trash bin of used toilet paper in the corner.
During all this, the cats are wailing, and it’s so hot that I will have to sleep in the car in my bikini (for respectability) with all the windows open because even going near the sweatbox of a tent makes me hyperventilate. And I think to myself – what am I doing here?

And the cat fur clumps float by in the air…

-E
PS… Turkey has banned YouTube (for various insults to Turkishness, which is illegal), so video posting will have to wait :(