Cameroonian Drain-o

Unfortunately, the Cameroonian plumber who designed my bathroom did not exactly take into consideration the shedding that occurs for white women such as myself. Understandably so, since most women in my community keep their heads shaved or wear mesh that doesn’t exactly fall out in the shower. However, as a woman who does not shave her head, I in fact have a lot of hair that does fall out in the shower. So when my shower drain started to act up, I knew what had gone wrong. Water wasn’t going down as quickly and the bathroom was starting to flood (my bathroom is the size of a twin bed, so it doesn’t take too much effort). The bad news is that my bathroom is connected to my bedroom and the bathroom is at a higher elevation than my room, and thus water tends to want to go to my bedroom. My first plan of action was to try to snake the drain. This is where the plumber messed up. The drain has a plastic cover that seemingly tries to prevent things like this from happening, but the cover is cemented to the floor. It is not possible for me to stick anything into the small holes in the covering to try to get the gunk out. Next plan, some sort of chemical I can pour into the drain. I went into the local store and asked about it. I got laughed at. “I don’t think that exists in Cameroon,” I was told. I travelled to the largest city in proximity to me and started hunting around. People thought it existed here! They did not really know where though. I eventually found a man who had a bottle of chemicals that he promised would work to unclog drains. I took the bottle and read it, and it did indeed say it would unclog drains. It said to pour half the bottle into the drain and it would clear it out. Seemed pretty promising. Then I read the other side. It promised to clear “serpents, mice, genies, and all beings of a mystical nature.” I immediately became skeptical of this witchcraft drain-o. I pointed it out to the man, but he said it was also modern, they just wrote that for believers, and would deal with other normal problems. He promised it would work. For the equivalent of 2 bucks, I figured I would at least try it, and since the bottle said I should wear gloves, at least some chemical had to be active.

I went home. I opened the bottle and poured some of the liquid into the drain. Immediately, a large plume of noxious gas came shooting out of the drain. Genie? Possibly. That was it for me though. I didn’t want to be around any toxic fumes like the ones emitting from my drain, so I left the bathroom and hoped the smoke was more than just an elaborate display. I tried to shower the next morning and the drain was blocked almost worse than before. Conclusion: The genie is gone but the hair is most definitely still there.