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In December 1993, I went to
Patna, in Bihar, India,
on a UNDP consulting assignment at the Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI).
After the first day of work,
I retired to my assigned quarters at the guest house.
Noticing that there was no toilet paper in the bathroom,
I requested to the housekeeper that the problem be taken care of as expeditiously as possible.
Two days later my request had not been granted,
so I spoke again, this time rather sternly, to the housekeeper.
He apologized and said that they had been looking for toilet paper all over town, but could
not find it. I thought this was strange, and insisted that they accomodate my request,
and they finally complied.
Many years later, while researching the subject of alternative sanitation,
I learned that people in this world are classified into
wipers and washers. While most people in the West are wipers,
most in the East are washers.
Only then did my experience in Patna made any sense:
I may have been a lone wiper among a sea of washers.
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