Jenracy. Wow. On paper, this home should have been much easier set up the hand hygiene system that we had set up the other homes, but this was one example of real-world being much different than the intended plans. This home has running water- one of the pillars of hygiene- sometimes. But there is easy water access
Filling up some water cans.
a few meters away from the home. Very accessible, especially in comparison to Soweto where you had to take a 20 min walk to go fill up your water jugs. Though, finding usable water may have been easier then at the other homes, the spacing to set up tippy taps where they will not be knocked down or used improperly was extremely limited. There are 3 classrooms all along one outdoor
Narrow!
walkway about 10 yards long and a shoulder’s width across. Putting it mildly, pretty narrow. Also, it was all concrete complicating the drainage situation and it also doubled as the kitchen where all the food was prepared- another ideally good situation that didn’t play out. Because the moms and older kids were cooking there, it really hampered the limited spacing we were working with as well as having all the small children close to the food/fire that was being cooked.
So, that was the situation. But, we made do with what we had and set up the tippy taps. Three for the home- 2 in the hallway above
Tippy Taps going up!
semi-drainage areas and one right outside the entrance to the school- a strange place, but it’s a good spot because of drainage and because the latrines the children use is a 8 min walk outside the home. So it works as a reminder every time the kids return from using the toilet.
I’ve got to say, something that has been really great with all these hand washing classes is how much the kids LOVE to hand wash. Definitely more than i preferred to do as a child! Granted, the novelty of the tippy taps definitely comes into play here, but that withstanding it is very
encouraging to see. The issue we’re beginning to see, especially after some reporting back from the previous homes is they’re handwashing so much that they’re having to re-fill the taps too often… Definitely a good problem to have from a health perspective!
The actually teaching classes went extremely well! The older class really understood the ideas of germs and disease very well. They kept returning to different members of the team showing their hands and saying, “Ewwww, germs!” Pretty adorable. The younger class
Such great kids
had a larger language barrier, requiring that two of the older kids come translate what was being taught. After, we all went and washed hands, used some tippy taps and quizzed each other on appropriate times to wash- “Before eating, After toilet, After touching animal.”
As always, it was so hard leaving the kids at Jenracy. A child’s ability to burrow a way to your heart is absolutely amazing. I know it’s going to be tough going home and having to hear about how all the kids are growing up from successive groups here, but I guess that’s better than nothing….
Goodbye Jenracy.
– Johnny
UTH Strings Attached 