Born a Crime

thing you could never aspire to
improve: your toilet. There was no
indoor running water, just one
communal outdoor tap and one
outdoor toilet shared by six or
seven houses. Our toilet was in a
corrugated-iron outhouse shared
among the adjoining houses. Inside,
there was a concrete slab with a
hole in it and a plastic toilet seat on
top; there had been a lid at some
point, but it had broken and
disappeared long ago. We couldn’t
afford toilet paper, so on the wall
next to the seat was a wire hanger
with old newspaper on it for you to
wipe. The newspaper was