the best way to bring a community together? a toilet

On Saturday we visited 2 nearby farming communities that are about to take on the compost toilet system that Give Love uses. At the first place, in a Jerusalem Corail camp near Canaan, we were met by 2 men who were so keen to start that they had already cleared a lot for the community compost center and had started drying organic waste to use as a cover material for the piles.

Our visit was mainly to determine the design of the first toilets that would be installed in their community and the maintenance of the system. The two men excitedly suggested just about every possibility for the location of a toilet (there were already toilets at this site but they are all septic systems which are really awful to maintain)  and throughout the discussion other people form the community stopped by and suggested even more.

Our second stop was at a similar community in Croix de Bouquets. We were met by 2 more compost managers who also had septic systems but were a lot more new to the idea of compost toilets so we discussed the responsibilities of the community and the ins and out of the system with them. The results were clear; the system makes so much sense that both communities were finishing our sentences for us. With the compost toilet system the threat of waterborne disease is removed as their water source is isolated from other pollutants, they don't have to pay the hefty prices for an unreliable septic tank cleaner (who takes their waste to an already over flowing pile of raw sewage in Citie de Solei) and they have nutrient rich compost in 6 months!

Just as we were about to leave the site in Croix de Bouquets one of the guys just laughed and said "Donk, nou deja genyen tout bagay nou bezwen" -So, we already had everything we need.

yep!! there's no better compost available than that which contains human waste- the most nutrient rich manure on the market.