Read me. Play close attention to the city health unit's response.
Recognition of yet another privilege - in the US, there are times I choose to "hold it" when I don't feel there's a clean enough bathroom for me to use, not because I'll die. Think mainly porta-potties at concerts at the Dodge music theatre in Hartford.
Here, kids 1) have no choice but to use some of the nastiest porta-potties I've ever seen, and 2) it's not a matter of just being grossed out about the condition of the toilets - it's a matter of life and death.
The city health unit blames people for not properly washing their hands and maintaining clean households. How do you keep a "clean" household when the tap you get water in is surrounded by stagnant water that won't drain full of bacteria is forever far away and everything you touch is contaminated by people's poop because the town doesn't maintain toilets and they naturally clog and rats make homes in the land near your house and people rape you when you just need to pee in the middle of the night....
One of the guys I work with here at SJC explained that sometimes the problem feels like a "black hole". And yet this past weekend at our Human Rights training we discussed the importance of healing together in "human rights communities", sharing the pain and discouragement, and celebrating the small victories.
I turn my head to the potential, and the passion community members feel here to participate in the movement for safe places to drink, wash, and relieve themselves. If we don't believe it can improve, the black hole will suck us in and conquer. The city health units of the world will win in their racist evaluations of how "those people" in those informal settlements live.
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