Toilets Toilets Toilets
Last week, we visited a latrine project run by an NGO in rural Cambodia.
There were many different kinds of bathrooms, showing one aspect of the community involvement for the project: families build their own structure to house the donated porcelain. We saw mud and straw huts, concrete bunkers, corrugated tin shacks, and mud and straw edifices covered with a thin layer of cement. (The turducken of provincial Cambodian cans, the mud and straw and tin shelter with a light cement frosting, was nowhere to be found.) Each family took proud ownership of their new restrooms, and posed next to the entryways, recreating the NGO’s promotional material glossies.
Before this project and before the toilets, the families told us with a laugh, most people used nearby fields. These fields are close to water sources and shallow wells, not to mention snakes and other ntighttime bumpers. They universally thanked the NGO for helping empower them to make the improvement.
Health changes take many forms.
