Response To Nature’s Call

Have you ever had the experience of responding to the call of nature in an open field or behind a bush? If you were on a wilderness trip, in a vast expanse of land or forest, it would not be strange for you to go defecate in the open. How would that be for someone who does this every morning, by hiding behind a bush or sitting in the open with the head down to avoid seeing other people during the act? To learn that many Nepalis routinely use the open spaces near their homes for defecation is simply disconcerting. These people are not just the poor villagers, who cannot build toilets for themselves at home. Even in the rapidly urbanising villages of the Kathmandu Valley, there are people still defecating in the open as their routine response to nature’s call.

Why? Can’t these people build toilets for themselves? In many instances, poverty has been such a crushing, humiliating factor that it forces people to live without food and shelter, let alone the luxury of a toilet. In other instances, however, the people tend to take things for granted. They follow a routine that their predecessors followed, without questioning its implications now. There may still be villages in Nepal where the people go about their routine lifestyle, unaware of its adverse impacts on their health. The need for sanitation and better hygiene should be felt by the individuals in the society. In whatever circumstances the people may be living in, some there find better ways to live a healthier life than others. The major challenge for the leaders of the society, the government authorities and the community organisations, among others, is to instill this sense of hygiene among individuals. They should design interventions which work for children and adults in places without enough toilets in the homes.

Understandably, however, that is a massive task needing a lot of resources. The government authorities should weigh all options while they are pursuing the goal to free the entire country from the practice of open defecation by 2017. The progress so far in this regard seems fine. The newest village that received the certificate of honour for being an open defecation free area is Gundu of Bhaktapur. The public authorities built toilets for 370 households in that village, which is less than an hour’s drive from the capital city of Kathmandu. On October 21, 2013, the government is organising a formal programme to declare entire Bhaktapur as an ‘open defecation free district’, making it the first district in the valley to get that clean honour. On the positive side, some 85 per cent Nepalis have access to piped water. Some 62 per cent of Nepalis are already enjoying access to toilets in their homes. Going by the figures mentioned in the news, one in four villages is already free of open defecation. We must now tend to the tall call to free the remaining three from the practice that may have adversely affected the health of many a villager.