Cañete with CARE

I'm spending a couple of weeks down in Cañete, a province of the department of Lima that was hit by the earthquake of August 15, 2007. A couple of other volunteers and I are working with CARE Peru to make some latrines and prepare people to take care of the latrines. We're also doing some basic hygiene education in health fairs in these little tiny beach towns. Today we're going to a community called San Pedro that is home to 23 families. We're going to play games like Jabon, Jabon, Microbio (Soap, soap, germ) a variaton of Duck, Duck, Goose and Flip cup with water to teach dehydration prevention. It should be fun.

CARE is building what they call Ecological Latrines in these little towns becasue they're on the beach and have a very high water table. These are composting toilets. I'm excited to see how they work and what people think of them. So far folks seems pretty into it. The families have to dig out their own drainage fields and clean up the latrine site as ther contribution to the project in order to get the latrine. They also have to help assemble and carry the pieces over to their houses. This is no small feat as it requires hauling plywood boxes that are about 8x8x6 from the assembly site to their houses on donkey carts without scratching, smashing, or otherwise damaging them.

More on how composting toilets work soon.