Another Day, Another Poop Story

When you sign up to live in a developing country, one with quite low standards for sanitation and waste management it is pretty much guaranteed that you are going to have diarrhea.  And lots of it.  I have spent the last three months suffering from Giardia, Amoebas, and I'm almost certain that my last bout of nastiness was Dysentery.  I'm just going to admit for everyone's humor that I have in fact pooped my pants living in Togo, and so have most of my friends.  I am happy to say that my last stool sample tested negative for nasty bugs in my GI track, but  the reality is that water borne sanitation related diseases are a problem that we are all seeing in our communities as peace corps volunteers and I thought this article was pretty intersting.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-seiler-peace-corps-20110515,0,4003465.story

I have tons of latrines in my village, I can't say that we necessarily have enough to meet the needs of the population.  What we don't have for certain in the entire region is an efficient way to empty latrines.  Word on the street is that only one vehicle in all of the Maritime region is capable of emptying a latrine.  So what do you do if you can't afford to contract this truck?  Well you either resort to not using your latrine anymore and pooping in the bush like you always did, or apparently you hire someone to scoop out the contents of your latrine with a bucket.  Tell me who wants to do that?  Not many I'm sure.  So latrines sound like a great idea and sanitation is hugely important but what about the kind of services that support the maintenance of such a thing.  I've mentioned before that I've got one of the village poop piles outside of my where I live, so I see first hand that our latrines are not being used all the time.

So here is my thought: composting your waste!  Its not new, its not original, and it doesn't require you to build much either! 

http://pickupamerica.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/start-a-revolution-start-composting-your-poo/

And you know what, while were at it, it doesn't even need to be restricted to areas of the world lacking sanitation.  You can say screw it to the obsence waste of water that occurs in urban fecal processing by making your own poop composter too!  I know its unlikely, but I thought I would put it out there that people in America are doing it...

http://www.humblepilechicago.blogspot.com/

I just went on vacation and tons of stuff going on in my life.  I promise to tell you about that soon, but for now I wish you happy pooping and I hope that you should never have to suffer the ills of contaminated water and resultant fecal sample preparations...