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From Uganda: Latrines and markets

The group in front of the marketplace latrine with our educational poster

Ah, the marketplace, the place that I’ve heard so much about.  The reports I had read mainly focused on the Marketplace latrine and I must say, the impression they gave was pretty accurate: big, dirty, weekly, and lots of people yelling at you to buy their stuff and then yelling at you for not buying their stuff.  Today we decided to give a presentation on best practices for using the latrine while we were there.  

We brought a poster, prizes, and my ukulele; we had been told that you can get the attention of people by playing an instrument first. Thanks to George who did the translation for us; he understood fully how the marketplace latrine was supposed to work and was able to answer the many, sometimes angry, questions from the crowd.  Many people were appalled that men and women could use the same stalls even though each stall was completely private.

Dagan Trnka, undergraduate student, engineering, UC Davis

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