Imagine living without running water. Now, also imagine living without a bathroom—no toilet, tub, or shower! The only place to go to the bathroom is behind a bush or tree. And the only place to bathe is in a river. Furthermore, also imagine living without any laundry facilities. The only way you can wash your family’s clothes is to carry them by hand to the nearest river, which is over a mile away. Then you have the challenge of lugging the heavy wet clothes back to your house!
Yet, what I’ve described is daily life for many of the rural poor families of Honduras. The better-off ones may have an outhouse. Others must go to the bathroom behind a bush or tree. The only way to bathe is in the nearest river. Not only are these things humiliating and degrading, but they also create a serious health hazard. These people have no place to wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Furthermore, children running barefoot through the countryside often step in human waste and spread it.
For this reason, the mayor of Taulebé and his wife Brenda approached the Society of the Good Shepherd several months ago to see if we could help with the situation locally. They went into detail about the health hazards the situation was creating. They also brought with them an engineer who had designed a complete sanitary unit that could be economically installed in the backyards of rural homes.
The sanitary unit includes a toilet, shower, and pila—all on a concrete slab. A pila is the basic laundry setup that most families use throughout Central America. It consists of two parts. The first part is a deep concrete water basin, where clean water is stored. This storage is essential because in most of Honduras, running water is not available from the city or community every day. In the Taulebé area, community water is available to houses only once every three to five days. If families don’t have a place to store the water on the days it is running, then they have no water the rest of the time.
The second part of a pila is a sink with a drain and a built-in washboard. Families use a bucket or pan to dip clean water out of the basin part of the pila, and then they use the sink area to wash whatever needs washing: hands, babies, and clothes.
These newly designed sanitary units can be built for only $500. The cost includes not only the material and labor, but also the plumbing. The government has agreed to connect these families to the water and sewer systems for free if we build the sanitary units. For most of these families, this running water will also be their drinking water. In other words, for about the cost of a washing machine in the U.S., we can supply a family with running water, a private toilet and shower, a laundry setup, and a sewage connection.
When we gave our approval to the project, the mayor and his wife created the Taulebé Community Development Team to put the project into action. The mayor’s wife, Brenda Cortez, heads up this development team. They did home studies throughout the surrounding rural community to see where the needs were the greatest. They found that some families had dilapidated wooden outhouses, but that many families had no sanitary facilities at all. One family was using a discarded old freezer for their pila.
So the team selected some of the neediest families to begin the program, and began constructing sanitary units on their property free of charge. The construction work was managed by an overseer with three helpers. The mayor’s office coordinated buying and transporting the materials to each of the locations. The actual assembly of these units is relatively fast. However, because it requires waiting for the cement to dry, each unit takes two and a half days from start to finish.
As finances are available, we will continue to fund these sanitary units for more families in the community. We want to thank our donors for making this project possible!
Julie Nyhoff de Valladares
The Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210 • (717) 349-7033
Click on the following link if you would care to make a donation to the work in Honduras: Honduras Donations