Why technology alone is not enough Part 3– Special series from EWB

Part 3:
Slowly and with great hesitance, I open the door to the pit latrine, and brace for an odour blast. However, I’m pleasantly surprised and relieved when there is no smell, no flies, and the latrine is clean. Some care has obviously been put into the design and construction of this toilet. Indeed – local considerations, both social and technical, have to be taken into careful consideration in any development project.

The water and sanitation officer who’s accompanied me to Tandoo is a young man named Rickson. He’s the technical person for his team, and he points out some of the important aspects of latrine construction to me.

“You see how there are no trees around here?” he asks, gesturing around the open space that surrounds the latrine. “Latrines should be constructed in the open so that wind can blow across the vent pipe in order to carry away odours.” This latrine is of the VIP type, which stands for Ventilated Improved Pit, designed to maximize airflow through the latrine.

He points up at the mesh that’s covering the latrine’s ventilation pipe. “There are small tears in this mesh,” he says. “That means that flies will soon be able to get in and out. This will have to be repaired.” Flies are vectors for the single greatest enemy to a community’s health: fecal matter. It’s fecal matter that contaminates food and water with disease-causing pathogens that can cripple a community.

“But it’s not only the technical details that matter,” Rickson says to me. “If you don’t get the social details right, then people won’t use these latrines, and they’ll just go to waste.” He points to the key-hole opening in the ground inside the latrine. “See what direction the whole is pointing in?” he asks me. The point of the key-hole is positioned towards the north. “This is a Muslim community,” Rickson continues. “It would have been a sign of great disrespect to point the key-hole towards, or away from, Mecca to the east.”

This drives home the point to me that a project like the one I’m working on needs an incredible amount of local knowledge to be successful – social details like the direction that a latrine’s key-hole should point just can’t be known by people who are far removed from the communities that these projects are benefiting. This means that local input is integral in the implementation of such a project.

All of a sudden, Rickson receives a phone call. “We have to move!” he says to me. “A pipe has burst in the small-town water system nearby.” We quickly hop onto his motorbike and speed away to the nearby city of Karaga.

To be continued!

Read Part 2 and Part 1 of this series.