24.8.10

Ignorance is Bliss…and Poop

I have wanted to write this blog post for a while.


A few weeks ago went home to attend Ali Moyer Flores’ wedding. After the wedding my college roommates and I went to the beach. Becky and I carpooled together and at one very posh rest stop (Wawa’s is a step up from Los Encuentros) we stepped into the ladies room . We entered a scene you often find in the bathroom. You have one or more persons waiting to use the services and a door to one stall wide open ready to use. You give the person already waiting a “are you waiting to use the bathroom/why aren’t you using that stall?” look and she verbally responds “oh you don’t wanna go in there!” You wait until a “clean” stall is available and do your business without giving the clogged/unclean toilet another thought. Well I gave it another thought as I waited for my seemingly motion-censored toilet to flush itself. Then I noted a button on the side of the toilet. I pushed it and the toilet flushed. MAGIC …not really

So, what did I do? I went and “magically” fixed the toilet we were all avoiding. All its contents successfully went down that magic pipe that no one thinks about and we once again had all three stalls working.

This same exact situation happened to me just a few days ago in the Nicaraguan airport. I knew exactly what was happening and flushed that shit straight down, literally.

So, when I was in that Wawa’s bathroom with Becky and I sent the floaters into the bowels of the earth I was strongly reminded of my job in Guatemala. Agua para la Salud is focusing on building hand washing stations and bathrooms at schools. We often debate on the best type of toilets to install: traditional porcelain toilets or latrines. Everyone wants flush toilets but no one maintains them. Simply put, latrines are straightforward, fool-proof but the porcelain gods on the other hand break, clog, or waste water from constantly running water (but they’re pretty, generally don’t smell, and are “development”). The truth about flush toilet issues is that they are actually relatively easy to fix and maintain---almost as easy as pushing that button in the Wawa’s bathroom.

What’s my point? The biggest issue we face in Agua para la Salud and the biggest issue any organization faces is maintenance, also known as sustainability. Another issue we have faced as an organization is relaying the importance and urgency of maintenance to donors and other supporters of our projects. In reality constructing the bathroom or any infrastructure is the easiest part of the process. Maintaining the system (through education) to work for years and decades to come is the battle that lasts forever.

I am currently in Rio Blanco, Nicaragua visiting Agua para la Vida, an organization who does similar work to us but also has different management techniques. They have a maintenance manager who oversees all projects once they are complete. In addition to this they have an education manager who gives several workshops to the community before, during and after the construction period of the project. These two elements ensure that the community can oversee and maintain their project for generations to come.