Again, I can't remember what I have or haven't written on the subject so bear with me. I've developed a great appreciation for all things clean, because over here I never feel clean, and nothing is ever clean. It is no surprise that people are always sick in these conditions.
Toilets: for those who have them there are mainly long-drops if you're lucky, some people have short drops which are beyond heinous. One weekend at Adafo Beach we had short drops and you could see everything that had happened in them prior to your visit. It was confronting, disturbing and foul, but i did it. For most people though, not having toilets isn't a problem because you can go anywhere outside to relieve yourself with either fluids or solids. They even use paper to wipe themselves which i can only imagine is an unpleasant sensation. Other times proper toilets are equally as gross because you can't put paper in them you have to place it in a bucket beside it and then you have to use water from another bucket to manually flush away your business. This isn't so bad except that people who have used it before you tend to be pretty gross and the notion of flushing really seems to evade them. I swear I have never seen so much poo, that isn't my own, in my life, as I have on this trip.
Sanitation: Along the streets are deep gutters that i suppose are intended to act as some form of drainage and sometimes they are filled with human waste and the smell is an assault on the senses. But there are no pipes, no place for wastes to go so the streets, gutters, rivers become the resting place of the most disgusting things.
Hygiene: Nobody washes their hands after the 'toilet', or coughing, sneezing, playing, working, petting animals or anything else that you would ordinarily wash your hands after. Then they eat with their hands. Culturally you're meant to wipe you're butt with the left and eat with the right, and I assume they believe this will be an adequate enough system of preventing the spread of germs. I sanitize my hands after the toilet and before eating and only have 2 of the five hand sanitizers left that I brought with me. Yet, still i feel dirty. People wash their clothes, and shower with buckets but there is still a sense of uncleanliness here. It might be credited to the fact that it is an ungodly temperature here and so sweat becomes a constant accompaniment during the day. Five minutes after a shower you can feel the touch of the sun melting through your skin and into your body and the sweat begin to trickle out of your pores and so an hour later there is little proof you have showered that day. The houses, shops, streets are all filthy and rundown because the concept of upkeep is obsolete. They sweep dirt from here to there, but nobody ever dusts or wipes walls and the result is layers of dust and grime that become one with the wall. When we painted the day care centre we obviously had to clean the walls before we began. It was a futile effort because the dust seemed to be impregnated within the walls and the dirt impossible to remove. In fact, after an hour of vigorous scrubbing the walls looked much the same as they had before we had started.
Health: malaria, coughs, colds, worms, stomach bugs are all rife. At the day care children are always coughing and snotting on me. Being sick is almost the norm. I have indeed, developed a cough myself, which is at least better than cholera or malaria I suppose. But the health or the people is a reflection of the lives they lead. Health only comes through cleanliness and so it is inevitable that people who live in their own excrement, would simultaneously live with disease.
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