...Because Everyone Deserves a Place to Poop!

Today we’re talkin’ ‘bout pit latrines.  In Malawi, we call a toilet a chimbudzi (or “chim” for short, but honestly I have only heard Peace Corps Volunteers use the word “chim”)

Get your quads stretched – maybe do a few lunges and squats – ‘cause this is going to be quite a workout!  (Yes, this will be painful, as I go through every agonizing moment of trying to get these pit latrines in full-swing)

Since I arrived in Dwambazi, pit latrines are all Jembe (my awesome and very persistent counterpart) could talk about.  The village he works with, Mbiwi, suffers from a great number of hygiene-related illnesses.  Last year, two children died of diarrhea and over one-hundred suffered from severe cases of diarrhea.  My friends from Peace Corps Niger said their PCMO would always say “You have diarrhea because you ate the poo!” – and that, my friends, is how you get diarrhea.  Bacteria found on your hands after you use the restroom can cause you to have a bad case of the Oopsie Poopsies. 

To counter this, Jembe conducted some research within the village.  He found that people in the village do not have stable pit latrines – most families live on the side of the hill and with rainy season, most of the sub-standard toilets wash away down the hill (unfortunate for those who live in the valley).  Their toilets are merely holes in the ground that are neither structurally-sound nor protected from seeping into water sources.  At the same time, most people are not in the habit of washing their hands or cannot afford soap.  So, as people are using the bush as their personal loo while also refraining from regular hand-washing, they are essentially, “eating the poo” which causes the dreaded di-di.

Time for a timeline?!

September 2011 – Jembe approached me with this pit latrine idea.  He wrote a grant, including all the figures and research and determined that the village desperately needed 60 pit latrines, several of which will actually go to the primary school in Mbiwi.  I’m fresh out of In-Service Training, so I’m ready and eager to work – “let’s do this”, I say to Jembe.

October 2011 - Jembe and I met with families in the village and investigated the latrines.  The chims were horrific.  If a gust of wind came, they would blow over.  If it rained for an afternoon, they would wash away.  In order to fund 60 pit latrines, we needed about $4,800 to cover labor, cement and reinforcement wire.  The community would be able to provide bricks, sand, stone and the pitting that would be needed for each latrine.  I wrote an outline for a proposal from the information Jembe gave me and talked it over with my APCD.  He said there was nothing we could do.  This great number of  pit latrines for private use was not something Peace Corps would fund.  Bummed, I looked elsewhere for funding.

November 2011 – I got a ride from a man named James who just so happened to be doing work in Nkhotoakota district (that’s my district) with water and sanitation with the NGO Water Aid.  Not only that, but he was a Tonga (so am I)!  We bonded over the same language and working with water issues in communities – I really didn’t have much to say on the topic, since I just started.  We exchanged contact information and planned to meet again soon.

December 2011 – Camp Women 2 Women and the holidays in Germany left me unable to get much progress on the chimbudzi homefront, but I kept them in the back of my mind.

January 2012 – New year, this is it!  Feeling dizzy, but rejuvenated from the previous month, I was ready to get down to business.  I e-mailed James to meet up but the soonest we could find a date that worked for both of us was in February.

February 2012 – I met with James and he told me that we could not work together on this project because he was supposed to stay in the southern part of the district (I stay in the northern-most village in Nkhotakota) HOWEVER, there is an organization in Dwangwa (the closest town to my village) that works with water and sanitation.  He called the organization (called WESM), gave them my contact information and sent me on my way.  Not bad, not bad.  I was so grateful that James looked out for me even though we could not work together.

March 2012 – I set up a meeting with WESM and the very same day they came out to my village.  I met with a man named Sam who told me we could definitely work together, no problem.  I handed him the proposal, he promised to get back to me.  Weeks go by, no word from Sam.  I call him, no answer.  I e-mail him no answer.  I contact someone else at WESM who tells me someone named Nellie is on the project.  I call Nellie for weeks, no answers.

April 2012 – No word from Sam or Nellie.  Jembe is getting anxious and tells me horror stories of NGOs running off with proposals, starting projects and then taking money from organizations but never actually fulfilling promises.  I’m getting frustrated.  I call several times a day because voicemail does not exist here.  Meanwhile, I am still looking into outside sources.  This is ridiculous.  Jembe tells me he ran into a Peace Corps Volunteer who told him I should just write a Small Project Assistance grant for the project.  I tell Jembe that 1) Peace Corps already denied us this grant and 2) you should not listen to other volunteers because they do not know our situation.

May 2012 – Sam writes an e-mail back saying he is in Blantyre, sorry for not responding sooner.  I can contact Nellie for further information on this case.  I call the number he gave me (which is different from the original number I was given), but it is no longer in service.  Jembe calls, too.  We’re attacking this every way possible.  No luck.  Finally Sam arrives back in Dwangwa after his long hiatus.  We plan to meet and I bring Jembe with me.  He tells us that his organization can only fund the pit part of the latrine – they will not fund the super-structure.  I contact my APCD and ask if there is any way to fund the super-structure of a pit latrine.  “Absolutely not”, he says.  We drop WESM and their sketchy ways and look into other funding...again, still.

June 2012 – I receive an e-mail from my dear friend Shelly who had a site mate who did a pit latrine proposal with Friends of Malawi.  It’s only for $500, but could at least help us get latrines at the primary school.  Jembe puts together a proposal for a smaller amount of money.  Hope?  Just a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel...

July 2012 – I run into my APCD at the Peace Corps office.  He pulls me aside and asks me how my pit latrines are going?  I respond, “they’re not”.  He asks where my grant is and I am completely baffled.  “You told me a grant would not work for this project!” I am confused, maybe I misunderstood him?  “Oh, well we still have funds in the Small Project Assistance grant and we’re trying to get the money used up by the next fiscal year,” he tells me.  What?!  I rush home and put together the grant...the very grant that Peace Corps initially denied me 8 months ago.  I feel so many emotions – anger being a big one.  Mid-month I receive an e-mail addressed to all Volunteers – every grant must be cleared by our Country Director before it can be submitted.  I write a letter to the CD and hear nothing for two weeks.  I write again and he responds by telling me to come into the office – a 12-hour round-trip hop, skip and a jump.  I give him some days when I will be in Lilongwe for another project at the end of the month.  I never hear back from him again.

August 2012 – At a Peace Corps meeting, we are told to hurry with our grants because there is still money and the fiscal year is running out – soon the money will just be gone (and then a new fiscal year starts)!  I put the finishing touches on my grant.  I have received one e-mail from my Country Director for the 5 I have sent him.  I give up trying to clear my grant – it just sounds like a lot more trouble than it’s worth and I’m feeling anxious.  Breaking the rules, sticking it to the man, I just want holes for people to poop in, is that a crime?

September 2012 – Grant submitted with plenty of time before the fiscal year.  All I can do is wait.  Wait.  And wait.  No word from the SPA grant liason.  I e-mail three times and send texts but hear nothing back.  Chill, Kathi.  Okay.

October 2012 – E-mail from the SPA grant liason!  I open it to learn that I filled out an old copy of the SPA excel spreadsheet.  Please do it again.  Well, at this point in time, my computer broke and I had to reformat it.  Excel was missing.  I had to re-download excel, which is not an easy feat.  First, you have to find a copy of it.  (Oh sure, a 12 hour round trip to Lilongwe...no prob)  Next, spend at least an hour letting it download (if you can find fast enough internet).  Finally able to fill in the correct worksheet, I submit again.  I hear back, “Yes, your grant looks good and we will accept it, but we do not have any money until the next year’s fiscal books come in.  Why did you sound so worried in your e-mails and text messages?”  Worried? I wasn’t worried.  I was desperate.  Waiting, waiting, waiting!  I gave Jembe a copy and he found a major glitch.  I switched the numbers between “community contribution” and “grant request amount” so we were asking for almost $1000 less than what we needed.  Quick fix, needed to print and sign before all of this can go through!

November 2012 – I was told that my grant would need to be re-submitted in the new format that Peace Corps is introducing in the next few weeks.  Furious, I talked to the stand-in Country Director only to find out that this is completely false.  Grateful.  Where is the money?  Still stuck in DC because of the tropical storm.  No problem, I can wait.  I’m a pro by now.  At the end of the month I received an e-mail response saying that the grant was submitted to Washington, please wait some more. BUT WAIT, a few days later I was told the grant was NOT sent to Washington after all.  What is going on?  Luckily I was in town for another event so I stopped into the Peace Corps office to get things straightened out.  I met with the Country Director of Peace Corps Malawi and he immediately signed the grant and now...now, November 28, 2012 it has officially been sent to Washington.  I have no idea what goes on at the office or why anyone would lie, but it is what it is.

December 2012 – Alright, so the money should be here any day now...mid-month I find out it is being processed by Washington and it will be in my account within the next five days.  Unfortunately, during that time frame I will be at a girls’ empowerment camp, far away from any banks.  And when I do return, it will be the weekend before Christmas when banks aren’t open again until mid-week.  At best, my grant money is another 14 days away. Patience is something I’ve seemed to have lost here, ironically.  You’d figure waiting on everything would cause me to chill, but I believe it’s the opposite for this control freak.  It’s out of my hands, so I sit back and continue pacifying the situation with Jembe, who is just as anxious as I. A sudden change in events – I had giardia and was not able to travel to camp right away.  My consolation prize (aside from the rumbles in the tumbles) was receiving my grant money on December 14^th.  I excitedly took a bike taxi to the nearest National Bank where I was required to write a check to myself to take out the money.  I did not bring my whole checkbook, just two blank checks.  I filled out the first one but apparently it was done incorrectly as I had written out the number numerically instead of writing it out in words (give me a break, it’s been a few years since I wrote a check!), so I scrapped it and wrote a new one.  This time, it was written in perfect penmanship, dated and signed.  I handed it to the bank teller who promptly told me my signature was not the same one as the one in their computer system.  This is mostly true because I have yet to master a decent John Hancock.  I practice sometimes when I’m bored, but to be honest, nothing has stuck and I’m sure it’s slightly off.  She refused to cash my check unless I wrote another check.  I only packed two blank checks and my checkbook was in my village 150 kilometers away!  Plus, withdrawal slips do not exist in Malawi.  I started to raise a stink (I know, very unlady-like, but this has been a 14 month excursion and a half and to have it all taken away because of a measly non-matching signature made me feel defeated).  I showed several forms of ID and resigned the check and at one point my bag of vegetables fell on the ground as I tried to climb over the desk (Don’t worry, there was glass separating us.  I can’t really explain what it was – instinctual? Straight-up crazy?) and eventually I got pulled aside to calm down.  A man told me it wasn’t going to work, I threatened him with the U.S. Government (Obama is going to be so mad if I don't put these pit latrines in!) and he left me with Christian (Thank goodness for Christian, as he held me back while my fists clenched with rage and calmed me down as I spit belligerence at anyone who would listen) for over an hour while he sorted it out.  In the end, I received my 1,594,800 Malawian Kwacha and deposited it into Jembe’s bank so he can buy supplies and get the builders going while I'm at camp.  There.  It’s done.  Relief?  Once those 66 pit latrines are dug and built, I will be a happy gal.

So yes, pit latrines are the bane of my existence.  The mere mention of them sends shivers down my spine and my hair stands on end.  I am constantly concerned with how much energy I am putting into their creation (am I working hard enough?!)  I worked so long for this and finally (pinch me, please!) something is happening.  We can complete all 60 pit latrines in 6 weeks and we hope to beat rainy season (unfortunately this is doubtful).  Cross your fingers and toes, mama wants these fancy poop holes to be a distant memory...