How Many Gourmantche Does it Take to Build a Toilet?

Community. This is an idea that we Americans love; a group of people working alongside one another, breaking bread together and helping each other through life’s many challenges. We like the thought of a group of people sharing life together. We love the idea of community, but it is a practice that is seldom seen as pure as it can be found in any Nigerien village. In Niger, community is not just an ideal. It is a tapestry woven from the lives of those that make up the community; pull one thread and the fabric falls apart.

There is something magical about the village of Alambare that continues to mystify me after nearly a year of being a part of its life. Hassan’s dream of a building a Christian community there is quickly being realized. Where there once was nothing but weeds and grazing sheep there are now six mud huts and a large tin roof hangar that will soon be walled as the new church sanctuary. These structures do not make community, but they do facilitate its growth. Whenever I stay in my hut the other five are frequently occupied by visitors from the eight satellite churches that Hassan pastors. During the heat of the day people laze and talk in the shade of the church hangar. And almost every night, even the nights when there is no service, the men of the village gather in the compound, drinking chai and sharing stories with their neighbors. Though I do not speak their language or understand their customs, the more time I spend in Alambare the more I feel a part of their close-knit community.

This summer we hosted a group of 11 college students. My brother, who helped lead the team from the states, said that they wanted to leave the city to experience the “real Niger.” I could think of no better place and no better community to bring a group of college students than Alambare. However, I knew that in order to accommodate a group that included 3 teenage girls we needed to have a little more than mud huts and reed mats. In the weeks leading up to the team, Dave and I made several trips out to prepare the church compound for the team’s arrival. The list of things to be done included making doors and windows for the huts, closing off two shower areas, building a hangar for our cook and her equipment and, most importantly, building a latrine.

My roommate, Jeremy, affectionately refers to Niger as one giant kitty litter box. It is perpetually sandy and anywhere can be a toilet. Nigeriens have also mastered the art of discreetly relieving themselves even in public places. I once saw a guy squat in the median of a busy city thoroughfare. I was probably the only one on the street who did a double take. To everyone else it was normal. The truth of Jeremy’s observation becomes more apparent as you leave the city. The most advanced plumbing you will find in most villages is the irrigation channels dug for their gardens. Water is pulled from a well, showers are done with a bucket and cup, and the best toilet you can find is a nice grove of bushes. This can be a difficult practice for any American to adjust to, and something that becomes even more difficult when the unfamiliar cuisine takes revenge on your digestive system. Therefore Dave and I made it our goal to have a sit-down enclosed latrine so, at the very least, the team could go to the bathroom in private. It’s funny to say, but it was throughout the course of this project that I learned a great deal about true community from our Alambarien friends.

Latrine Building Step One: Digging a Pit

Community Building Step One: Communal Child Care

On our first trip Dave and I were accompanied by three South Africans. They were part of a group doing a yearlong tour of the continent and working with different churches along the way. I found them camping in the courtyard of one of the city churches. They had no schedule while they waited three days for their bus, so I offered the three available spaces in our truck to any who wanted to see how life was in the village. John, Pierre and Wayne jumped at the opportunity.

As soon as we arrived we set to work on building doors for the huts and digging the pit for the latrine. Many of the church members left their fields to come help. Soon our group of five was split amongst four different work crews. We had a crew measuring and squaring doorways, another crew assembling the scrap wood and tin into doors, a third outside digging the pit for the latrine, and the all important fourth crew boiling chai and distributing the caffeinated jolts to the workers. All told there were over 20 Alambarien men who came to help or watch, including the chief.

Whenever there is a large gathering in a village, you can be certain the child population will be double that of the adults. Our Thursday construction project was no exception. Toddlers, hardly able to walk, grabbed the hands of their older brothers and were drug to see the commotion. Babies were strapped to the backs of their six-year-old sisters and toted to the construction site. Some were the children of the men at work, but the majority are just curious observers of the strange white men who claim to be African.

American moms who witness such a gathering of children always ask, “Where are their parents? I wonder if they know their baby is so far from home?” I always dismissed those questions with a simple answer to the effect of, “It’s their culture.” While true, that response is incomplete. Digging that latrine pit, I learned a profound truth about communal childcare in Alambare. Pierre was taking a break from the work and began playing with some of the surrounding children. He noticed one of the children had a festering wound on his foot. It was infected and the flies were swarming it. Having a background in medicine, he asked Dave if he could be taken to the village clinic to get some medication. They went, came back, cleaned and bandaged the child’s foot and gave him the first dose of the antibacterial treatment. Pierre then asked if the boy’s parents could be found so he could entrust the remaining medication to them. The men of the village looked at each other for a moment, saying nothing. After a long pause the chief rose from his seat and said, “The boy is my son. I will make sure he gets this medication every day.”

I cannot say that the chief lied, but the truth is the boy is not his son. There was, however, a deeper truth to the chief’s words that showed the depth of communal bonds in Alambare. While a son may be the offspring of one man and one woman, he is a child of the village first. The entire village has a hand in raising him. Parents do not worry about their children wandering because they know any one in the village will correct and punish a child they see doing wrong. Conversely, a child being mistreated will be defended by anyone in the village, even if the abuser is the child’s parent. They do not worry about their child getting lost because everyone knows who the child is and where his home is. I would go so far as to say that African parents do not care about their individual children as much as American parents. Their specific neglect, however, is replaced by a general concern for the well being of all children in the village. They worry as much over their neighbor’s children as their own and they can be at ease knowing their neighbors are doing the same.

In the villages there is no such thing as an orphan. If a child’s parents die his relatives will bring him in. If they cannot be found then a neighbor will become responsible. Similarly, there are no retirement homes, those orphanages of old age. Instead the widows and the elderly are respected and cared for by the community. Christianity did not teach them this sort of true community. They did not need Solomon to teach them to raise a child in the way he should go. They did not need Jesus’ exhortation to care for the widows and the elderly. It was already a part of the tapestry that makes up a community. When the chief claimed that hurt child as his own he was not speaking falsely: he was speaking on behalf of the community.

Latrine Building Step Two: Making a lid

Community Building Step 2: Fellowship of Women

It’s T-minus one week till the team’s arrival, and our toilet hasn’t got much beyond a shallow cistern with seepage holes. Dave and I figure that with two trips we can finish the project, haul all the supplies we need, and finish any other miscellaneous jobs that need to be done. Tuesday morning I get the truck loaded with all the supplies and tools we need to haul and head over to get Dave.

Mulligan, the Johannson’s Labrador, starts barking uncontrollably when I walk in, then proceeds to run around slobbering as he goes. Nata, Dave and Hope’s one year-old, is singing/shouting in his own language as he beats loudly on the African drum sitting in their living room. Sam, their three year-old, is standing on his kitchen chair spooning his morning milk to himself. He drinks with a spoon because it is powdered milk and with a spoon he can scoop all the excess powder and sugar off the bottom. He’s almost done which, with his method of drinking, means two things: the majority of the milk has dribbled off his spoon onto the floor and he is already hyper from the sugar and concentrated milk powder. He shouts “Dan!” and jumps off the chair to run and greet me. Hope emerges from the kitchen looking frazzled and already exhausted.

“Hi Hope. How are you doing?” I ask.

“Oh, you know how it is. Sam kept us awake with nightmares last night and Nata has diarrhea. Just one of those mornings.”

It’s only 7:45… and Daddy’s leaving for an overnight in Alambare… this is going to be a long day for Hope.

“Hope, I can’t find the iPod. Where did you put it last?” Dave shouts down the hallway. I guess he isn’t ready yet. Looks like we won’t be getting on the road at 8:00 as planned. This could be a long day for us, too.

Two hours later Dave and I are in Alambare preparing to seal our hole in the ground with a giant cement lid. Using a hole in the ground and a few pieces of scrap metal for a mold, Dave had already managed to make a steel reinforced cement lid. To prevent rainwater from getting into our latrine we decide to seal the lid down with another layer of cement. Cement requires lots of water, so I get sent with the truck to fetch some from the village forage.

It’s 10:00, which means the forage is busy with women getting water for cooking and washing. We have 20 Gerry cans to fill so, knowing it will be a while, I find a spot in the shade to sit and wait for our turn. As I watch I realize that fetching water is not just a chore for these women: it’s their social hour. Some of these women have walked up to 3 miles to the forage, and they are preparing to walk 3 more miles with an extra 5 gallons of water on their head. They are in no hurry to get on the road so they linger and joke with their neighbors and catch up on the village gossip. The women who live near the forage have brought out their wash buckets and, gathered in a circle, are doing their laundry and dishes together. Their children play together under the shade of a nearby tree, the older ones climbing it only to be chastised down by whichever mother sees them first. Their babies are strapped on their backs and either sleep or smile in contentment (except when they catch a glimpse of the scary white man who sends them crying). Two and three at a time, but almost never alone, the water gatherers heft their loads to their heads and start walking back home.

Some people see this picture and have pity on such women. They see the toil and the struggle of the simplest tasks and wonder how anyone could live such a life. They regret that these matriarchs will grow old and know little beyond cooking, cleaning and raising children. They regret even more that these women hope for little beyond food to cook, clothes to clean and children to raise. Maybe they are right to pity such women. I have experienced similar sentiments myself. That day, however, I felt something different. I was overcome by a sense of irony.

I could not help but pare the picture of the women at the forage and the picture of Hope earlier that morning. By comparison, Hope lives a life of luxury those village women could never imagine: a large house, electricity, and running water. Hope has more education than those women could ever aspire to. Two days a week Hope teaches music at an American high school in Niamey, a welcome liberation from the normal household routine. She is the quintessential liberated working mom. However, on this particular morning Hope was counting the costs of all her liberties. The price of having electricity and a washing machine is that modern women don’t circle up their washing machines so they can talk why they push the button. The cost of running water is the time spent with a friend while fetching water. The price of having a big house with ample privacy is sometimes you find yourself trapped, alone in a large, empty home. The irony that struck me at the forage was that, despite all of her advantages and education, those village women seemed more liberated than Hope.

Latrine Building Step Three: Building a Hut

Community Building Step Three: Men’s Fellowship

With the help of ten church members the large cement lid has finally been rolled and sealed in place. All that remains is to build a small hut around the latrine to give its user some privacy. The rains just started three weeks ago, which means two things for the brick market. First, it means that everyone has been buying and using bricks to repair their homes and walls before the rains. Second, it means the planting season has begun, so everyone has left their normal day job to begin tilling their fields. The men who normally mix and mold the mud and straw bricks have all become farmers. Depletion of inventory and diminished production means a scarcity of bricks, and we need 300.

The church members begin asking friends and family members if they have bricks for sale. We go throughout the entire village and can only scrounge together 90. As we are sitting contemplating how we will find the necessary 210 bricks that remain, a villager comes to announce that he has 150 bricks for sale. Excited, Dave and I hop in the truck with five other church members. We get to the salesman’s home and there is not a spare brick to be found. We ask him where the bricks are and he points to the brick wall that forms an entryway to his home. “You can knock down that wall and use the bricks for your project,” he tells us. The normal cost of a brick in Alambare is 10 francs, or roughly two cents. The scarcity has driven the price all the way to 25 francs, or five cents. This guy figures he can sell us the wall, rough it out during the rainy season, then rebuild for a handsome 150% profit, or if you do the math, $4.50. While I appreciate the man’s business sense, we could not justify destroying his home so our toilet could have a wall. The man tells us he knows someone in Tamou, 40 km up the road, who can sell us bricks. So, in true Nigerien form he piles in the truck and shows us the way to the vendor in Tamou.

At this point we are eight full-grown men in a truck that sits five comfortably, driving 40 km down a rain-torn dirt road. Eight men + 130 degree weather - showers = one hot and smelly truck. Dave and looked at each other and just laughed as we rolled down the windows. We had a blast the whole smelly drive to Tamou. When we arrived we found a vendor who had 300 freshly cast bricks for sale, just as our new friend had promised. Since the truck can only handle 100 bricks at a time, we pay, load up the first 100 and promise to return for the remaining 100.

As soon as we pull into Alambare and pass by church members’ fields, some men leave their work to come help unload the truck and build the latrine hut. After unloading, Dave and I climb back into the truck to go retrieve the remaining 100 bricks. To our surprise the same six guys climb back in the truck with us. In my American mind I did not see the need for more than four people to go back to Tamou: we knew where we were going, it only takes three to load the bricks, and the extra hands could be more useful building the hut. Instead, we were once more eight full-grown men in a truck that sits five comfortably. As we piled back in the truck, I was reminded of something Dan Ligon said back in February. We were going out to breakfast before he and his wife returned to Maradi and the restaurant was on their way out of town. Nobody wanted to take two cars, but one car meant having to go back in the opposite direction to drop people off, costing an extra 30 minutes of travel time. Finally Dan said, “We don’t need to find a reason to take one car. In this case the only real reason to ride together is that it is just nice to ride together.”

Dave and I had a great time laughing and joking with the villagers, but they were having way more fun than we were. It was a great day for them because they were able to spend the whole day together. Instead of working by themselves in their fields they were riding around with seven of their friends. Dave and I were thinking of the second trip to Tamou in terms of optimizing time and labor on the project. The villagers were thinking in terms of time spent together. Even if it meant squeezing eight full-grown men in a truck that fits five comfortably, the fellowship was worth it. To them, the time spent together riding to and from Tamou was more valuable than finishing the latrine a couple hours earlier.

Building a Latrine Step 4 : Ventilation

Community Building Step 4: The Heck if I know

Having found all the bricks needed for the latrine’s hut, Dave and I layed out the first course and gave instructions for how to finish. It was 4 :00 and we were hoping to make it back to Niamey in time for dinner. Hassan assured us the latrine would be finished before our final preparatory visit in three days. Feeling confident that he could handle the job, we packed up and hit the road.

Three days later we return to Alambare with our final load of supplies. Approaching the Church from behind, we can see the latrine hut is finished as promised. Excited, we get out and walk around to the front. To our shock and horror, there is a window in the wall, directly in front of the toilet seat. I look to the side and see a small pile of extra bricks, so the window could not have been the result of too few bricks. Confused, I ask, “Hassan why is there a huge hole in the wall directly in front of the toilet seat?”

Proudly Hassan responds, “I thought on this a long time. Without the window there is not much light, and it is hard to take care of your business if you cannot see. Also, there needs to be some ventilation. Now the person can get fresh air while they use the toilet. Also, they can see if someone is coming and can tell them not to come in.”

“But Hassan, don’t you think it will be hard for people to go if others can see them through the window?”

“Oh, but nobody here will look through the window. It is normal for people to use the bathroom in the open where anyone can see. They will not watch if someone goes in the hut to do so.”

I guess there are costs for such a close-knit community. If you become a member of a community like Alambare, you reap the benefits of that community but also surrender some of your rights. One of those rights privacy. Nothing is private, not even a toilet.