The wizard of waste
TribTown • Portlander’s latrine project aims to improve sanitation in Togo
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VIJAY SHANKAR
Shankar has trained villagers to become “peer educators” who can teach others to use the new Eco-san latrines, which can be made out of common materials such as sand, cement, wood and tin.
Public toilets have become a pressing issue in downtown Portland, as restroom proponents – and their foes – wrestle with how to provide relief at popular gathering places such as the Skidmore Fountain without exacerbating public-safety problems.
They should talk to Catlin Gabel School graduate Vikram Shankar.
Shankar, 26, is a Peace Corps volunteer working in Hihietro, a remote settlement in the West Africa nation of Togo. His goal is to improve sanitation – specifically, to build the village’s first latrines – in an area lacking even the most basic infrastructure.
In Hihietro, water is drawn from wells by hand. Electricity is unreliable, few roads are paved and children play beside open sewers. Worst of all, the village’s existing facilities – open-air squats known as sauvages – are little more than mounds of human waste swarming with flies.
“It’s a nasty situation,” Shankar says. “It’s pretty disgusting.”
The lack of sanitation contributes to some grim statistics. Togo is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual per-capita income of $350. Malaria and AIDS are endemic; roughly 40 percent of school-age children suffer from parasitic infections, including amoebas, hookworm and roundworm. Doctors are scarce and medicine in short supply.
Unfortunately, the nation’s government appears paralyzed by corruption; in 2007, The Economist magazine ranked Togo as one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world, falling below dictatorships such as Libya and Uzbekistan.
When he first arrived in Togo, Shankar was stunned by the dust, the flies and the poverty – but quickly realized that he could take concrete steps to prevent disease in the village by eliminating the sauvages and replacing them with Swedish-designed Eco-san latrines.
They require no water and are constructed by local workers out of common materials such as sand, cement, wood and tin, at a total cost of approximately $300 each.
Shankar also realized that the latrines would not be effective unless residents knew how to use them. To that end, he has trained dozens of villagers to be “peer educators,” using the Japanese martial art of aikido as a lure.
Shankar, who practiced aikido for years at Portland Aikikai on Northwest Marshall Street, says the martial art makes an ideal incentive for the educators because it emphasizes discipline and cooperation.
“I wanted to cultivate the spirit of helping one another,” he says.
Response in the village has been overwhelming. Peer educators happily sit through hours of lectures on latrine technology, HIV and AIDS, and mosquito control in order to spar on the aikido mat. Portland Aikikai donated 15 gis, or uniforms, which further stoked the villagers’ enthusiasm.
“That was incredible,” he says. “Just a simple thing like wearing a uniform really makes people feel good.”
Health education is a major challenge in Togo, according to Shankar, because belief in magic is widespread, even among educated people. Many men believe AIDS can be cured by having sex with a virgin; Shankar has fielded bizarre questions about whether HIV can be spread through blood oranges, and so on.
Back in Portland, family friend Rachel D’Sa and her 9-year-old daughter, Kyla, were so impressed by Shankar’s work that they decided to raise enough money to build one latrine.
“I thought it would be cool to help,” says Kyla, a fourth-grader at Jacob Wisman Elementary School in Beaverton, who plans a poster campaign to raise awareness among her fellow students.
So far, the villagers have contributed roughly $4,400 to the project; Shankar hopes to raise another $5,600 to build a total of 30 latrines. One major obstacle, he says, is that few Americans know anything about the situation in Togo.
To that end, his father, Portland psychologist Vijay Shankar, is planning to make a presentation titled “The Peace Corps Experience in Togo, Africa: A parent’s perspective” at the Cedar Mill Library, 12505 N.W. Cornell Road, at 6 p.m. Thursday. Call 503-297-5216 or e-mail vadv@qwest.net for details.
Shankar says the new latrines, soon to be constructed, are the talk of the village. He anticipates that a large crowd will gather for their official opening. “It will be a big deal here,” he says. “The Togolese like to celebrate.”
To find out more about this project, visit http://tinyurl.com/2eu7wz.
chrislydgate@portlandtribune.com