Together we studied the Humanure Compost Toilet Manual. It read, “There are two types of people in this world. Those that sh*t in their drinking water and those that don’t.”

We were about to experience how the other half lived.

The toilet was a yellow bucket with sawdust, placed under a wooden toilet seat frame. For 10 days we followed a routine of eat-excrete-sawdust-repeat. We bonded each time we had to collect another wheelbarrow load of sawdust or shovel the contents of the toilet bucket onto the humanure compost heap.

As a city girl travelling with my farm girl friend, the compost toilet was the source of many discussions as we sat around in our mobile home after a day’s work. And while no television, mobile coverage or WiFi will do that to a girl, the compost toilet was the first of many opportunities WWOOFing in Ireland provided to learn about healthy, sustainable living.

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