Sorry folks, this one is a bit of a counterpoint to John’s recent more appetising post, so a little word of warning: if sanitation topics are not really for you you might just want to consider skipping this one.

It’s that time of the year again at the College,  graduation ceremony: a  dissonant but cheery brass band, no end of speeches, lots of singing – we reported last year.

Happy Graduates

Given the glorious weather it all happens outside on the College grounds. Two days before the ceremony, Salum, one of the Environmental Health teachers, catches us in the corridor and drags us to the notice board: ‘Good news, good news! Tomorrow from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. we will all tidy up the College grounds to prepare for the ceremony – and we have an NGO to help us!’ It goes without saying, each and every task can be tackled with donor support only…

That aside, why do the grounds need such serious clearing up? Well, as you know we actually live on the campus, a stone’s throw from the main buildings: Our rubbish goes into a big barrel near the house, gets picked up by a truck, if we’re lucky once a week, often once a fortnight. Smelly business. It is an open barrel and you will remember we share the grounds with ravens, cats, bush babies, cows, chickens etc. That reminds me: I’d like to report we believe El Bastardo breathed his last breath last night. I know we hated him but it really is not a lot of fun overhearing a chicken being slaughtered right next door while you’re trying to watch an episode of Dexter.

RIP, El Bastardo

Anyway, back to the main point: especially the ravens are experts at dragging anything and everything previously dumped in the bin out of the barrel and distributing it, all over the place, right across the campus. Early on we asked College management why there were no lids on the bins and they said they kept getting stolen. Errr, okay. So John went on the hunt for a solid piece of wood to more or less cover the barrel and keep the birds out. It never stayed on the barrel for more than a day though. We were rather puzzled. Surely everyone would prefer to keep the rubbish inside the bins where it belonged? Is it really that difficult to put a piece of wood back on a barrel once you’ve emptied your rubbish into it? But apparently El Bastardo and his clan come first and the bin seems to be their little fast food restaurant. Yummie…. What disgusts us most about this though is that there are lots of kids on the campus who roam the area every day. So rubbish is what they play in.

The Handy Takeaway

Gosh, this is a College which is supposed to teach students about environmental health! If they can’t get it right, who will?

So let’s have a look inside the buildings: Ever had dead rat whiff blowing out at you from the air con in your office? There was an initial half a minute attempt at getting the carcass out of the air con box but apparently it was just too difficult for the student who had been summoned to do so. So, a bit of shoulder shrugging and that was it.  My Nursing teacher colleagues I shared the office with told me not to worry, after three days the rat would be dry and no longer smell, so we would just need to wait. Well, the smell did disappear after about 3 weeks, the rat itself is still in there….

The general cleanliness situation has actually improved a bit with management changing but when we first arrived I quite naively thought using the student toilets was an option. I’ll spare you with illustrative information on the state of the actual loo, but will mention that all wash basins had a thick crust of dried dirt in them, and there was no soap, and indeed no water.

Which brings me to the right-hand rule. Many of you will know that in a lot of Eastern and African countries you are supposed to eat, touch other people, hand over money only with your right hand, as the left hand is considered to be dirty. The reason for this is that toilet hygiene is quite different, toilet paper is not part of the routine. Actually some cultures find our habits of using paper instead of water to clean oneself utterly disgusting, and I do get the point. So, without going into too much detail, how does it work without toilet paper? Most local toilets are squat toilets.

A clean looking specimen

To wash your body while still in situ you have either access to a spray hose  or a bucket full of water with a small ladle. The actual washing happens strictly with the left hand. Now that is all very well as long as there is water and soap to access afterwards to wash your hands properly. Very often not the case here. The consequence is that the left hand is really dirty, not just metaphorically speaking.

But, sorry folks, obviously the right hand rule is just not the answer. It is accepted to carry boxes with two hands, to open bottles with two hands, to hold onto the rail on the daladala (the bus pick-ups) with two hands etc. So, hey, simply making it a rule to hand over your money and touch food with your right hand is really not going to make the world a much cleaner place. Okay, okay, let’s just not think about it in further detail….

Our local daladalas – always a rail to hold onto,  with either hand…

I’ll share with you just one last anecdote on cleanliness from the world of public health: Instructions on proper hand-washing are a component of one of the first lessons for nursing students at our College.

In accordance with these rules there have been sightings of nurses in hospitals standing by a dry tap (many wards either don’t have any running water at all or only sporadic access), rubbing their hands thoroughly, in the air, with not a drop of water or soap to go with. Hongera – congratulations! They have now spread the germs evenly across both hands and wrists. But more about the consequences of rote learning in this society as opposed to problem solving and independent thinking another time….