Next Monday I will be packing up all my belongings, which actually isn’t saying much at all, and setting out on my next unexpected African adventure. I have volunteered to be the health coordinator on the ground for BfL in a remote district they also have been doing work in. Iganga is a town with an estimated population of 51,800 according to the brief Wikipedia article I found. It’s not big even by standards here, BUT it is a town and not a village. I will be heading out with another intern who just arrived from Boulder to also do work in Iganga. For my remaining four weeks or so in Uganda, I will be conducting house visits to many of the women and facilitating sanitation, health, and nutrition seminars with them. Though there will be a language barrier, as I experienced in the village, BfL is accustomed to using translators in this region themselves as most people there speak Lusoga rather than Luganda. Unfortunately, the few phrases and words I have picked up on here in Kampala will be useless up there as well.
Speaking of language, I thought I might explain names in Uganda. Most people are given two names at birth. First a “Christian” name is usually given, which basically just means anything western-sounding (Ruth, Alice, Harriet, Peter, Robert, etc.). However, the spelling of these western names follows the African way of anything goes sometimes. The second name is an African one, which follows a really beautiful tradition I think. The name usually is given as a translation of something that was happening around the time of the birth. For example, one of the women at the office said her name translates to “at the time of the harvest.” Best brace yourself for life however if something bad or funny happens when you’re born because you could end up toting it around with you for life! This same woman told us of some of her friends that had kind of unfortunate ones in my opion. How about Nasiche? Sounds nice, but means born at the time of the locust season. These African names are also normally hard for me to pronounce, but fortunately, they almost always go mainly by their Christian names. Along this same idea of names with significance, there are certain names someone might gain as things happen to them throughout life. One very common name is Ssalango meaning “father of twins.” Someone you are all very familiar with has been dubbed with this name too. In fact, when he was President and in the news all the time he was mostly referred to by all the media as Ssalango George Bush ( I had a good long laugh on hearing that one).
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| the pit latrine from the village |
Now that I’m done with that tangent, back to the original topic as promised. Sanitation is a major issue in many developing countries, and it really takes a whole lot of infrastructure to deal with something as mundane as disposing of waste. Kampala is a little different, but most other places in Uganda do not have a trash pickup service or connections to sewage lines. Unfortunately, many many families still do not even use a pit latrine (squat toilet) to dispose of their own bodily waste. Many of the women BfL serves in Iganga fall into this category, so it will be my charge to go out, identify women who need pit latrines, and work on setting them up with another organization who will hopefully be helping us with the actual construction. These pit latrines are normally about 30 feet deep, so this is no small task. They also should be at least 10 meters from the home. So now you may be asking yourself how do you get they get the waste out of there eventually? And the answer lies somewhere between disgusting and amazing. If a latrine is built about 30 feet deep in can be used by a family for 20 years or more without ever filling up. The waste decomposes some and seeps down and out slowly. They do eventually fill up though, especially with over use (where many families are sharing one), and the only thing left to do then is build a new one somewhere else. The house I stayed at in the village my first week had one of these lovely toilets. The man had lived in the house since 1981, and I am pretty positive those were the original latrines, which is really grossing me out come to think of it. There are two side by side normally, but I just took a picture of the inside of one. Didn’t want to over poo it (harharhar it’s been a long day, give me a break). Still craving more potty language? If you ever hear a Ugandan say he is going for a “short call,” don’t expect him to call his mum – he is telling you he is going to take a trip to the men’s room.
Unfortunately, as it seems with so much stuff here, there are always complications to consider. You may also be thinking that if the waste is decomposing, it must be going somewhere. While they are supposed to build latrines far away from water sources, it is not difficult for the waste to seep into the water table, which is why people can’t drink the water here in the first place. It’s already happening in a lot of places, but it is a bit concerning that building pit latrines – if not done right – can actually lead to more of the exact problems we are trying to stop, such as diarrhea and typhoid. Diarrhea is the leading killer of children 5 and under here. I just really hope that this is the best method because all other options are really out of the women’s price range.
In other news I crossed the equator this weekend. It was kind of anticlimactic though.
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