Squeaky Clean

There are a few things I have learned about the Togolese; one is that they like to be very clean in both home and body.  Here you are expected to bathe two or three times a day and some host mothers have been known to brag about how wonderfully clean their volunteer is if they bathe a few times a day. 

I can understand the desire to bathe more than once in the day.  It can be immensely hot and humid during the day and getting sweaty is unavoidable.  For some reason it also just seems to be easier to get dirty here.  With dirt roads and no grass everything gets very dusty very fast and I have not felt so grimy so often in a long time.

Making a clean house and property is another high priority.  Everyday the whole house is swept along with the yard.  As diligent as Americans are with tending their lawn, my Togolese family makes sure their open space of dirt is smooth and debris free.  This diligence towards cleanliness, however, does not extend beyond ones own space. 

All of Togo is a trash can.  In Togo the idea of a dump or trash collection is nearly nonexistent.  Togolese families dump their trash just off their living space and roads and public spaces are littered with garbage.  Shower water and animal feces are also included in the rubbish.  Plastic bags are often the largest portion of the trash in the streets.  Every purchase is placed into a black plastic bag, drinks are served in plastic baggies, and ice cream treats come in a small plastic packet.  All of this packaging and all other trash is just tossed in the street.

Not only is all the garbage odorous and ugly it also poses major health issues.  Excessive amounts of waste makes areas for water to pool creating breeding grounds for mosquitoes.  In a region plagued with the most deadly types of malaria, minimizing the breeding mosquitoes is of immense importance.

The spread of diarrheal and parasitic diseases is also increased by high levels of pollution.  Animal dung and waste water tossed into the streets impacts water sources and acts as a reservoir for disease that people walk though and play in every day.

It would seem that finding a way to get people to take as much pride in their communities and country as they do in their own homes would help solve this problem.  But without the resources dedicated toward garbage collection and a place to put trash you cannot expect people to stop just throwing their trash on the ground.