Food for thought

Hello Everyone!

In this blog post, I would like to share two things:

1.       What it’s like living in the part of Malawi that has 12 languages

2.       The effect of open defecation and Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS, my placement) on girls and women

1.       What it’s like living in the part of Malawi that has 12 languages. Tiresome! But really interesting at the same time. I am so relieved when I find someone who speaks English, because then I can ask them how to speak in their language! My host father speaks seven languages, and one of those thankfully includes English. However, his wife, mother, and three children do not know any English. So it will be cool communicating with them without words and practicing my Chilambya (the language I have chosen to learn). I am getting supremely good at communicating with actions and not words. I want to challenge each and every one of you to a game of charades when I get home, because there is a good chance I will win! I am getting very good at explaining things like “shower, boiled eggs, and business deals” with hand actions. Mostly people just laugh at me, and I laugh at myself.

2.       The effect of open defecation and Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS, my placement) on girls and women specifically. Open defecation means that instead of using a commode (toilet), someone pees or poos in the wide open space (like a bush or river). This is a serious contaminant for people’s water and food supplies, and causes disease transmission via the faecal-oral (poopàmouth) route. For example, someone with cholera/typhoid/Ecoli/etc poops in a river. A woman is collecting her family’s drinking water and/or washing clothes downstream of this. Diarrhoea causing illness such as cholera, typhoid fever (yes that still exists), and E. Coli are transmitted when the recipient swallows the faecal matter (poop) of the person with the disease. Gross eh? So thaaaat is why we wash our hands after using the toilet! Millions of children die before the age of 5 because of diarrheal illnesses, even more than malaria. This is because someone is pooping in the river upstream, behind their house, in an open pit, or simply behind a bush. This is one specific example (pooping in the river) but there are lots of other scenarios where diarrheal related illnesses are spread from pooping to eating. It sounds really gross, but most people don’t understand the connection. So this part was about girls and women right? Yes. Girls and women are most affected by open defecation because the cultural indicators of Malawi inhibit them from showing any skin from the waist to well below their ankles. This space between their waist and ankles is the most intimate part. So you will see NO bikinis in Malawi, or skirts above the knee for that matter. This means that ‘going’ in the great outdoors means that girls and women must wait until no men are around in order to relieve themselves. In fact, most will get up before dawn and wait until after dusk to do their ‘business’ for privacy. The hours of daylight in Malawi are between 5:30am and 5:30 pm. This is an extremely long amount of time to wait. In fact, my nursing mind is wondering if it’s even possible. Anyway, constructing a private toilet or closed pit with walls would be extremely helpful for girls and women. I have also read that women are usually the leaders in a village on sanitation movements because it both affects them directly and their children. Women are most aware of diarrhoea illnesses with their children.

Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all your comments and questions, I read and cherish every one of them!

Karina