WASHing

How many people do you know that wash their hands before dinner? I mean really? I know we get told to do it as kids, but did our parents really do it themselves? All the time? You sure?

I bet YOU don’t . I also bet you don’t know many people that do it at all. I hope you realize that you are breaking international WASH standards. And you should feel guilty about it. 

Want to know what WASH is? Water and Sanitation and Hygiene. It is a general sector within the sphere of humanitarian aid, and there are minimum international standards that most organisations and people working within this sector adhere to. Washing your hands before eating is one of the things that people working in this sector will teach. I just came back from assessing a project where this is an important topic. If fact, it is one of the major parts of a programme that will cost millions over its three year lifespan. One of the largest impediments to any kind of development in a country is the health and wellbeing of its people. Quite simply, if one is too sick to work or go to school, change cannot happen.  Keeping clean is part of this. People’s health is often underserved by their limited access to basic health provision and knowledge. You know why we wash our hands of course. We do it to clean off the most harmful bacteria. Why would you wash your hands if you don’t even know about bacteria?

I have caught a little glimpse of what happens when you don’t look after your own hygiene, and it ain’t pretty. Diarrhea, lots of it. Skin diseases. Eye infections. You will see a lot of photos of kids in poor countries. Look closely at the photos. You might see flies around their eyes. Eye infection, right there.

Now here is what I find interesting. The stuff I have seen underlines a basic habit that we take for granted in the UK, without quite realizing why. We wash in the UK in order to avoid smelling. We often wash because we feel it is socially unacceptable to go out without doing it. Having a shower makes us feel “more human.” But the experience here reminds me of the real reason for good hygiene which we do not often remember or even know. If you don’t wash your face regularly, your eyes will die. If you drink dirty water, you may well waste away from any number of parasites and sicknesses.

Now consider this: If someone does not know about bacteria, how do you convince them that drinking from and using clean water for washing is a good idea? How can you tell them that they need toilets and that they should not, in fact, go and shit in the woods? Want to convince them that human feces in the open can infect drinking water?  You could try and explain to them about small animals they cannot see. You could try and explain how they breed several times an hour. Perhaps you could try and tell them that these small, invisible animals cause diarrhea and eye infections. They won’t believe you though.  They will think you are making it up. Let’s be honest here, it does sound a little fantastic.

There is at least one answer the question of how to convince people though. It comes in the form of shame. Give up on the idea of visiting a village and showing them a few things in a workshop. They won’t buy it. Far better to ask them to drink their own feces. 

This is an approach that a few people I have met recently have been taking. Let me tell you how you how it goes. One should go to a village and meet with the people there. Convince them that you are not there to give anything away, but to assist them with their problems. Keep talking. Eventually you will get around to sickness and then you can say “Wait, I can help you with that. You need to dig latrines, and to make sure you use them rather than going into the bush near your village.” They will say that you are crazy. “No, really. You should because if you don’t then your waste will get into the water and infect you.” They will insist that they know that poo is disgusting, but would not drink it. It does not go into the water, as they would see it. “Oh really?” you say. 

This is the clever bit. While you have been talking, you have all been walking around the village and you are in a place where you can see human waste lying in the bush. You have a bottle of water in your hand and you have been allowing people to drink from it. Now it is half full, so you take a stick and transfer a small bit of feces into the water. Put the lid on. Shake it up so the water is clear again. Offer them a drink…