Calculating Shit

Today was the much anticipated village CLTS training.  After spending Monday and Tuesday in a meeting room, running through the steps and practicing different scenarios, everyone was ready to put it into motion.  I left the office a little before 7 and we picked up Lathana and one of the district trainers and headed to PhouSan, one of our RCD target villages about 40 km from Phonsavanh.  When we arrived, we parked outside the house of the village chief and introduced ourselves.  Some of the villagers pulled me aside to teach me how they grind corn for animal feed.  Its a lot harder than it looks... especially in heels!

Pouring the grain into the mill. 

Pouring is one thing. Grinding is a whole other story!

Returning back to the crowd,  I witnessed a bare bottom child squat right in front of me and openly defecate.  I guess thats why we were there.  That being said, I should probably explain CLTS.

Community Led Total Sanitation is a unique approach to implementing hygiene and eliminating open defecation in rural communities.  Through a process known as triggering, the villagers will come to their own conclusions about community sanitation, and if all goes well, want to build their own latrines.  In PhouSan, a village of 120 families, there are 20 toilet facilities.  As part of our project, we hope to raise that by atleast 50%.  CLTS has been conducted worldwide and is very effective at stimulating behavioral change.

The first step in CLTS is introducing yourself to the audience.  While the facilitators are there to guide the process, they are by no means lecturers.  Behavioral change does not come about through being talked at.  It is important to tell the villagers that you are not there to change their actions, only to evaluate the current situation.  Its also critical to remind them that the facilitators are not financially responsible for building the latrines, but can act as consultants if necessary.

After determining the purpose of the visit, villagers are asked to take the facilitators on a transect walk.  This walk should stop at the schools, houses, areas of open defecation and water sources.  Today, many people joined in on our walk and were interested in what we were doing.  I was the videographer all morning so I followed many of the village leaders as they pointed out which houses had toilets and which did not.  Along the way we also stopped where we saw signs of open defecation.  The main facilitator would ask the group "Who's shit is this?" and "Why is this here?"  At this point, the villagers became very aware of their behavior and many were embarrassed.  We put a cookie next to the pile of OD and showed how easily it can be transferred when a fly moves between the two.  The villagers were disgusted, everything was going well.  As we walked, Lathana recorded all of the important sites with a GPS so I can start working on the Google Earth imagery of the villages.

The beginnings of our village map.  

The walk brought us back to the chief's house and we stood in a large group in the open area outside.  The next step was to map the village.  Villagers used tapioca powder to represent the boundary and roads in the village.  Next, they added colored cards to indicate where the school was in addition to the houses.  Different colors represented houses with and without latrines.  Finally, we asked the villagers to mark where they openly defecated.  Using saw dust, they made little piles that covered a lot of the map.  On some of the mounds, they placed leaves, representing bushes.  On one edge of the map, one man put a row of ten little piles all covered with leaves.  When we asked him what he thought, he said it was good, that everything was orderly.  Eventually the villagers realized that they were living in each others shit. This was the ah-hah moment.

Woman admits to open defection behind her neighbor's house.  Its all fun and games...

Man adds shrubbery to defection row.  At least it was organized!

After mapping was the activity entitled "Calculate shit." And they did just that.  Using rough approximations, the villagers estimated that they produce about 888,000 kg of shit per year.  Shocked, they then calculated the annual medical bills spent for cases of diarrhea.  They found that the average family spends about 1.8 million Kip on medications for diarrhea, thats almost $250!  With the shit calculated, eight families came forward and signed up to build latrines.  Thats nowhere near 50% of the village, but its a start.

The women looked on as we calculated shit.

As a final activity, we had the villagers play a connecting game and enforced the idea that open defecation travels.  Children were happy to hold up the cards and everyone got a little confused, but in the end, they understood.  Proper hygiene and the use of latrines is essential to a healthy village.

The village children all wanted to get in on the connecting game. 

The kids were able to order the consequences of OD.  They also thought the pictures were funny!

We thanked the village for having us and came back to Phonsavanh for lunch.  We ate at a pho restaurant that also serves mee-ka-tee, a XK specialty.  It has more flavor than pho and despite the crunchy pork chunks, I quite like it.  After lunch, we returned to the office for a meeting with James and Bounsong before I headed to the QLA to check in on Thoummy and progress at the shop.  The scarf supply is dwindling and we are having more problems fulfilling the multiple steps in the supply chain.  I have my work cut out for me on this one.

Me and the Hmong baby I played with this afternoon. She is only 1 month and 5 days old.  The villagers all thought I was too old to not have one of my own.  I think not!!!

I'm heading to dinner at Nisha's tonight (the great Indian place) with James and Bounsong before they leave tomorrow.  Last night we all got pretty tipsy off BeerLao at the grill restaurant (yes, I went back two nights in a row, this time I was an expert!) so tonight will not involve any Lao forced drinking games.  All in all a great day!

Love, Pet