Embracing the most disgusting version of myself
The question is: Can I sustain it?
Five years ago, I cycled across Africa and did things for the first time that I can’t undo. It was the beginning of becoming the most disgusting version of myself, a cherished timestamp in life that only occurs once a year when I have the absolute privilege of cycling across Kenya with some of the most amazing people who I get to call old and new friends. I’m part embarrassed, part where-the-fuck-is-my-trophy, and as I lay here in bed considering what I just experienced brushing my teeth, the list grows longer.
Peeing outside your tent. Like not getting out of your tent but instead unzipping one side and hanging your ass out of it as you attempt to navigate the ever so slight gradient in the earth that results in your pee not being soaked up in the earth as you had planned but instead gushing toward your tent while you frantically try to construct some sort of dam in the hard soil only to have your pee cover your hand and your tent and then you casually brush it all off on the pants you’ll wear tomorrow, zip your tent back up, and go back to sleep as if nothing happened.
Not washing your water bottle. Not once over 11 days, even though just yesterday you told all of your guests that they need to clean it every day because you are literally riding through shit but you are so tired/ambivalent about shit that you take your chances and simply wipe the nozzle off on your shirt before you drink out of it. When you go to refill it, there are mold-like dots from your energy tabs and you tell yourself that it’s just because they didn’t dissolve all of the way (lie) and you’ll be fine (high-risk tolerance and trusting you have a gut of steel after being on this continent for 20 years).
Brushing your teeth with no water. Night after morning after night. Because finding your water bottle that’s likely crusted with shit and/or is a Petri dish for energy drinks feels too difficult to do so you just brush dry. And you do occasionally find water to wet your toothbrush, but that’s just for the entry into your mouth. The exit is a quick tuck back into the case as if it’s not covered in your toothpaste spit. The end result? Changing the head of your electric brush five weeks into your trip only to find the most disgusting toothpaste and dirt gunk disaster built up at a spot that might be close to your mouth, but you’ve definitely been touching it and how you did not get sick from your own filth is beyond you.
Not brushing your hair. When you have curly hair like I do, you really can only brush it immediately following a wash, and when you’re not washing your hair because you know that bucket of lukewarm water will just make a dirt bath in your rat’s nest versus actually clean it so you opt up keep it pulled up with that free clip you got from that expensive face cream purchase, you can’t brush it. But now you have to buy a new hairbrush because that one time you did attempt to wash it and brush it, you may have pulled bristles out because of your wildly tangly hair.
Growing out all of your body hair. You really notice how much is down there, in there, all over there not when you’re naked with your lover but when you think about filming something for OnlyFans and then you think twice but then also check your internalized misogyny and remember when that one man at the bar in Lamu asked if you were French and you channel that energy while wondering if he asked you that because of the hair under your arms or if it was a pickup line. No one knows.
As I review this list, there’s not a whole lot that I would do differently (except washing the water bottle because that’s a health concern and I must do better but also I do so many things every day and it’s hard to fit one more in). It’s quite liberating to say fuck it. I rarely looked in a mirror. I opened Instagram like five times. And while there were plenty of people who I would absolutely see again (my team at Zawadisha and my friends at Wildlife Works and at Savage Wilderness Safaris), we have these deeper relationships that embody the ethos of “come as you are, not what others want you to be.”
While I’m back to rinsing my toothbrush because I have running water and I did wash my hair today, that body hair isn’t going anywhere for a minute and I still am spending just a few minutes looking at myself every day. As my time in Kenya comes to a close, I hope that when I return to the States and jump right back in to it, I can sustain the perspective that comes with being the most disgusting version of myself: living in the moment with such joy and such disregard for the things that don’t really matter.