Today I left for Phalombe District from the bright lights of Blantyre. When I first arrived in Blantyre, I found it hard to believe I was still on the same planet, let alone in the same country! The small grass-roofed, mud hut communities I had seen in Dedza and Ntcheu were slowly transformed into shiny office buildings, banks, lines of parked cars and neon lights promoting bars and restaurants.
The supermarket and shopping complex in Blantyre
There’s even a KFC. As we headed out of the town, the shopping complex and dual carriageway once again returned to the single strip of tarmac and bustling wooden shack market places. In the distance, my destination loomed, it’s peak hidden by clouds. At 3,000 metres, Mulange mountain is the highest point in Malawi.
Travelling out of town
Concern Universal works in Phalombe District providing community based sanitation, although it has also conducted Water and Sanitation work and Malaria projects here in the past. Currently, the two-man Concern Universal team are training communities about the importance of safe toilets. At risk of offending you, I will now refer to the project and its messages in the same way as my colleagues in Phalombe do.Not everyone in Malawi uses a toilet. Some people shit on the ground. The word ‘shit’ has been adopted by the team to attach a negative connotation and shame to the act of defecating in public spaces. Needless to say, this act causes the spread of disease and makes for a pretty nasty surprise for children playing barefoot in the village.
Yet again, I’m learning that so much about sustainable international development is education. The role of the team is to train communities on the dangers of shitting in the open, suggesting ways they can improve the community by adding toilets and encourage them to maintain it. The community does the work. This way we know they truly support the work and are more likely to look after it if they have invested their time.
There is also a great emphasis on community. If just one person shits in the open, they are putting the others at risk. To explain this to villagers, a piece of fish is put next to shit on the ground. The group then watch as the flies travel between the shit and the fish- also known as ‘eating each other’s shit’. This graphic illustration encourages the community to uphold standards. Once everyone in the community is using a toilet, the community is involved in a big party known as the ‘ODF’ (Acronym alert: Open Defecation Free) ceremony. Local newspaper, TV and Radio reporters are invited and the event is widely publicised to help encourage other communities to stop ‘eating each other’s shit’ (one village caused a stir when they decided to include this on their village sign.)
In the village I visited, the team were training people in other villages on the importance of safe toilets. They explained how previously, cholera had been rife in the community and some family members had died. Since the ‘ODF’ status, there have been no cases of cholera in this community. Walking through the tiny remote village of square houses, I found a gentleman named Frank Nanjiwa.
Frank outside his toilet.
Frank was obviously very proud of his hard work. He was keen to invite me in to see his toilet and, his eyes alight, explained how he had dug a pit that was 5 metres deep, covered it with logs, then filled with earth, leaving just a whole. He then set about building the toilet walls from mud bricks he moulded and dried. He then built the roof out of wood, covered with plastic and then placed grass over the top. I asked if he lets other people use this toilet and he beamed and nodded. “Of course! All welcome!” At the age of 65 he was embracing education and simple technology to improve his life. I will always remember Frank.
Frank with his ‘stand-in’ wife. The village headswoman was kind enough to stand in as he couldn’t find his wife!
Frank using his handwashing ‘tippy tap’
