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RE: Toilet Girls: in rural India
This is such a fascinating post @freewheel. I've heard about the lack of toilets in India before, which as a Westerner blows my mind. It's also really interesting that the culture of not using them is so ingrained that even those with toilets (now) are not using them. A real education shift needs to happen here for it to be considered 'normal' I guess. Thanks for writing this, I really enjoyed it.
Thanks for reading! I think it’s telling and encouraging that most of the children seemed to be pro-toilet, a sign of good education work that is being carried out in many schools. I did find the adults’ comments fascinating though, because when you try to see things from their perspective, when they’re accustomed to going far from their homes to do their business precisely because you want to keep that as far as possible from where you live, it must be incomprehensible to them that some people defecate under their own roofs - where they sleep and eat. It’s a matter of educating people about how toilets work, but it’s certainly not as straightforward as I first thought, and a great reminder to listen to other people, take their concerns seriously, and not suppose that we in the West always know best :)