Work Week 2 : 4/11 - 8/11

 We have established that our project will be focused on planning a dry sanitation facility in Zwelitsha, a neighborhood of Langrug where there are no toilets and only one broken water tap for about 500 families.  Before we can start this, we have been completing our assessment of the WaSH facility implemented by the 2012 WPI team.  Our sponsors want a twenty-page asset management plan with operational procedures of the current facility.  Yeah, we didn’t really know what that was either.  We worked from home Monday and Wednesday to figure out what this is, and submitted a draft of Friday.  Here’s hoping our advisors like it.

Enviroloo design

We spent Tuesday and Thursday in Langrug with our advisors to begin plans on the facility we want to create.  Tuesday we had a crucial meeting with our sponsors and the community leaders to ensure that everyone was on board with us pursuing this facility.  On Thursday we met with a representative from a company called Enviro Loo.  Enviro Loo makes toilets that separate solid and liquid waste, and “dehydrates” them using wind and solar energy to be used for composting.  It was an interesting meeting.  The representative seemed very eager to put thier dry toilets in an informal settlement.

A key thing to remember is that we are not saviors to give Africans toilets.  The improvements need to come from the community or else they won’t accept or respect them.  We are merely the catalysts for these changes happening in the Langrug.  Scott, our advisor has made it clear that we will not be beginning construction before we leave, but we will be creating a detailed plan for the implementation of this facility.  The upgrading of the settlement must continue after we leave, and be driven by the community, not outside sources.

Also on Thursday we had another group from the project centre join us in Langrug.  They are working on expanding a preschool in a formal section of Cape Town, and their sponsor wanted to look at preschools (or crèches as they’re called here) in informal settlements.  This was their first time visiting an informal settlement, and they were shocked by what they saw.  I guess working there for a few weeks has kind of numbed our group about the poor living conditions that many people live in.  That still doesn’t make images like this any less haunting.

Children from Langrug play in trash

This week I was looking at the shacks that humans call their home.  And while they are indeed a far cry from anything I would call acceptable living, I saw hope.  Humans have been surviving for thousands of years in various conditions, from shacks to mansions.  While we seem to think that a proper house is the best way for a person to live, a shack is better than nothing.  This week I saw the resilience of humanity when I looked at the shacks.  Even in the apartheid era when people had no jobs and some, not even rights as citizens of South Africa, these humans put a roof over their heads with whatever they could find.  And they still survive today, living life as best as they can.