More dust and latrines

Tuesday May 4 – Wednesday May 5: El Carmen and Hardeman, Bolivia

Two days of interviewing women about their bano ecologico (composting toilet). Tuesday involves a 30 minute bump up the road to El Carmen, a very small dust-choked village strung along the road. The school has 40 students, all of whom we saw in a presentation for our benefit. A large group of 5-8 year olds, standing upon command in military poses, and singing the Bolivian and Cruceno anthems. Then poetry by older boys, an ode to good health, a guitar song by El Profesor, and a dance by the older boys and girls. Entertaining for us, and they seemed to enjoy it too. Most of the students wear a uniform of white shirt and blue pants or trousers; most seem well cared for, but a few are noticeably thin, grubby and inattentive – hard not to think it’s malnutrition, which is very common here.

Our inspections begin with the school, which has a bano in addition to 4 toilets. It gets good marks based on our 5 page list of questions for the Professor who is in charge of it, and a page of observations. The questions are long, and sometimes obscure; by day 2 we’re shortening some and skipping others. What we don’t realize until the 4th and last day is that the final page of observations and questions has to be totally filled in for a valid evaluation. We had left some of those questions blank (particularly if no one was home to answer them), but in the data entry phase we find ourselves having to remember or create answers ourselves. Not a good way to obtain valid information, which nevertheless is going to be used Friday for a big public presentation on the program’s success. In addition, there’s considerable qualitative judgment involved in marking the observations (is there sufficient, or only a little, of the drying material available? Are there a few flies present , or not?) and each group no doubt develops its own standards of evaluation. I have a feeling our group errs on the side of giving higher marks than warranted.

Many women speak mostly Quechua or a mix of that and Castellano. Luckily Mariel speaks Quechua, and Abraham understands some so that they can pair up on these interviews. The dress for women seems very standardized: short sleeved rather fancy blouses that fit over short, voluminous skirts which often are a velvet (perhaps these start out as best clothes and then become everyday ones with wear?). It’s hard to guess ages: every woman looks aged with work, poor diet and dental care, but very few have gray hair or many wrinkles. Some women I take to be young are in their fifties, and others with 4-5 children are in their mid twenties. Probably living to 70 is very unusual. All women so far have long black hair, usually in two braids down the back or stuffed under a baseball cap.

The status of the banos ranges from excellent to terrible. As much as a gringa is accustomed to a flush toilet, it’s easy to see the advantages of these: they don’t take water, which is costly, sometimes not available, and also would increase the high water levels during the wet periods. They also produce a valuable fertilizer. However, the banos take a certain amount of care to keep them clean and to manage the composting material . It takes a really committed and somewhat educated woman to keep it up over time, even with the encouragement of the local network of health promoters, usually other women, who work with 10 families on this and other health issues. Most women we talk with have only a very general notion that the banos have improved their family health, but the doctor reports a much smaller caseload of diarrhea since the banos came into use.