Saving Ballo's Bushes

31/3/2008

Abel Ballo's kids shall no longer abuse the bushes. The CHEs and I built him a toilet this morning. (See 'Penitence', 20/3/2008)
Not a particularly extravagant affair: just a big hole in the ground, overlying planks with a hole, stones for squatting, a bit of zinc fashioned into a cover. But not without its technicalities. Siting needed consideration of relationship to groundwater depth, distance from living quarters, surrounding vegetation and direction of prevailing winds. And digging a 1.5-metre hole was no small task.

'How to build an effective toilet' is a question that's weighing on NGO minds across the globe. A cursory Googling brings up an astounding array of technologies and philosophies, even a World Toilet Organization.

But only half of Timor uses any form of toilet a step above the ad-hoc hole, so we're still pretty proud of our big-hole-with-a-cover.

-raj