Outside Toilets
When I combed through my archives, the
article that caught my attention, was an article that appeared in the Tribune Insight on Monday 19th
August, 2019. It said, “forget power
cuts, some of our neighbours suffer greater indignities”. In this article, Morgan Adderley is
addressing the issue of outside toilets.
Throughout the Bahamas, many persons still live in homes that lack
indoor plumbing, so in this modern age, they must still go outside if they wish
to use the restroom. What is most
worrisome about this is that we are in the midst of a pandemic and good hygiene
and social distancing seems to be the primary ways in which we fight the spread
of Corona. Lets dig a little deeper into
this article and show you the human element, Crystal Miller, is a young mother
who rents a home with no indoor plumbing.
She has two very young children and reports that she has to clean the
toilet before her children uses it, Ms. Miller points out that, some tenants compound the situation because, they
are not tidy. Thank God she is vigilant
and goes with her children to the toilet but, what about those children who go
and use that same facility unsupervised.
They are exposed to very unsanitary and unhealthy conditions. Children who sometimes forget to wash their
hands, put their hands in their mouth, this presents numerous health
concerns. This is perhaps an issue so far from the
minds of many because, going and turning on a tap to cook, bathe, flush the
toilet etc. is so common that situations
like this is far removed from our minds.
Yet for many, it is an everyday thing, before they go to work or school,
they must take the jugs or buckets to the pump to get water so they could bathe
or relieve themselves. Think of the
challenges this must create when there are young children in the home, elderly
person with no help or a female when she has to deal with her cycle. Many of us can stand on our soap boxes and
give numerous reasons why this is the fault of the individual, but life is
messy, people have challenges and they make mistakes, and who’s to say how life
would have turned out for us, were it not for fate blessing us with the family
it did, consider our education, social status etc. before we point our
fingers. Further, many people have lost
their jobs and subsequently, their apartments so what this pandemic is showing
us, is our lives can change in an instant so, we need to have more empathy and
concern for our fellow man.
To some of you reading, the solution is simple, rent another house somewhere else, but in most cases, these types of houses are perhaps the only place that many of the poor in the “Over-The-Hill” areas can afford. Rent in the Nassau is notoriously high and many cannot afford accommodations with all the modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and electricity because the rent is so high, so they make do. This is echoed across the inner city communities such as Bain and Grant's Town, Centreville, Englerston, Kemp Rd. etc where the high cost of living, is pushing many persons deeper into poverty. Many low income workers pay to live in squalor or face homelessness. The concern however is lack of running water and proper sanitation could contribute to the spread of various types of illnesses. All of us have to be under curfew, so can you imagine the situation this creates for this young mother who cannot leave her home to get water. She may fill several containers, but what happens if it runs out. You may say that this is not an issue for you, but viruses do not live in a vacuum, we do not live in a vacuum. These persons do not live in isolation, but are a part of our community, so this problem does not exist in a vacuum, and has implication for all of us. The argument being made is not that the poor cause the spread of disease, but unhealthy situations create a greater opportunity for illnesses to spread and when faced with a major health crisis, the poor has more challenges because they have less resources.
The
article further states that the current
administration led by Prime Minister Hubert Minnis, promised to eradicate
outside toilets by 2025. Further, it
is one of the goals of the Over the Hill
Revitalization Project but, to residents in these neighbourhoods, it seems
like just another campaign promised used to seduce voters. According to Rocky Nesbit, chairperson of the Project, the elimination of outside
toilets is a part of the Revitalization Initiative and it is said that
assessments would be done to determine if accommodating outside toilets in
these homes are “feasible”. The
feasibility however is a greater concern for renters rather than homeowners
because improvements to the property may result in increase rent which some may
be unable to afford, so the issue looming in the background is affordable
housing. However, when we consider the
health implication for everyone, we realize that we cannot leave anyone behind.
It brings to the forefront the overall issue of poverty in the Bahamas, and far
from the glamour of the hotels and casinos, there is the “other Bahamas” where
ordinary Bahamians sometimes live in abject poverty, but we cannot fully
address the issue of outside toilets, without addressing the overall issue of
poverty in the Bahamas. Kudos to Morgan
Adderley for drawing our attention to the vexing issue of outside toilets in
the Bahamas.