A Hole for Your Poop

I rode a donkey today. My feet almost touched the ground. I felt like i was riding a pony or other similar tiny horse. My grin was grand.

Lets just cut to the chase...where does THAT expression come from.? Is it like if a police pursuit of a criminal is televised and everyone just wants to see the chase, and the reporter goes, "Ok, Brad, lets cut to the chase"? The intention is to skip all the crap and get to the good stuff. The expression is clearly having an unintended effect right now as i am still rambling. Maybe give us a little history behind this seemingly arbitrary statements, popular media. 

Anyways, a little update from the past month or so. My padre came down to visit and our latrine project is finally at full speed. 

My dad came down for a few days to hang out in town and his trip happened to coincide with the beginning of our latrine building scheme. As you can see below we make a pretty good team:

Clearly doing the lions share of the work....

Laying down foundation.....or analyzing rock samples.....

Seriously, the homes we are building latrines for a really far off the beaten path and it takes half a day just to deliver the materials to them. We have to take the equivalent of 3 wheel-barrels (its a lot tougher when you don't have the wheel-barrel) of sand, 1 wheel-barrel (that's how we measure things out here) of small rocks to mix cement, 2 bags of cement, 3 re barb, 20 cement blocks, nails, wire, etc. out to these homes by hand. Today we used a donkey.

I always used to wander why other NGO's like World Vision or UNICEF never built latrines here.....i now know. BUT, it is a very worthwhile project, and every time I even think of complaining about how much work it is I take a look at all the kids that are giving everything they got to help us:

 Homeboy wanted to carry a whole block so bad, but i negotiated with him and he carried this piece of broken block on his head with the proudest smile in the world. HE helped build his family's latrine. It is powerful stuff. Very humbling. What is not pictured is the distance he carried this block...barefoot, or the time when he helped me shovel sand into a bucket....a few grains at a time, or the all day he spent following me in case i needed his help.  It is hard to find that work ethic in a grown man much less a small boy. He is one of 13 brothers and sisters and this is his home:

That is why we do what we do here. These people out here are all but forgotten. They receive no aid. They are good. They are good people who are hidden from the rest of the world. For me it is like uncovering buried treasure. I'm sure they do not see it that way, but I feel blessed just to have met them. 

You can talk about improving hygiene and eliminating diarrhea all day, but unless you give them the resources to put it into practice it is worthless. As you can clearly see it is not a one-sided effort. 

A really cool component to the latrines are these hands-free hand washing stations:

 

If you look closely at the photo you can see her right foot pressing down on a lever which tilts the bucket downward. The soap is on a rope (soap on a rope!). A genius idea that was brought to our attention by one of our interns, Hannah. That is what my dad was helping create with Becky's (my machetes) help:

A full blown effort to reduce the incidents of intestinal bacterial infection in the area. Yhatzee.

We recently celebrated International Toilet Day. Being involved in this project really makes me appreciate that holiday a lot more. Why doesn't hallmark make cards for it? A few suggestions:

Happy Flushing!

Poop (that's it)

It's midnight. Do you know where your poop is? (Probably more appropriate in a TV ad)

I just want you to know that i'm thinking about you...r toilet.

Got TP? (Could be used as a t-shirt design)

The possibilities are clearly endless.

Everything else is good too; Diabetes club, Chicas Maravillas, Nutrition class, Health Fair, etc.

Adios!