We’re embarrassed to share this.
We’re embarrassed to share this with you, about the minus-five-starred facilities forced upon us.
These are things we would rather not talk about. We’re just like most of society in any corner of the world; we like privacy in the bathroom and to be clean and dignified.
Before we came here, we had homes and bathrooms that served the purpose. We come from different places and backgrounds; some come from low-income families and basic lifestyles. But one way or another, some infrastructure was in place so the toilet flushed, or we duly used soil or sand to deter the flies.
Then, the household member deemed lower in status would have the monthly job of burying it all far away from the family home. Or if the toilet flushed, along with the bathwater, it ran away to water the cornfield or followed the drain channel to moisten the crops.
But when people chase us, set on beating us and cutting life from our bodies, we flee for our lives. The last thing we think about is what we’re running to.
There’s no time to think. There is no time to collect our thoughts, grab personal items or essential documents, or even think if we need the loo before we go.
Assumptions and showers
It’s strange how humans make assumptions about things they don’t know or understand. While that causes homophobic behaviour, we also wrongly assumed that a camp with over 200 thousand people would have fit-for-purpose toilets and washing facilities.
Maybe you made the same assumption, even though you also assume it could never happen to you. We’re with you on that. We truly hope it never does. We must use the grim sanitary conditions we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy.
Roughing it
A few of us have been camping. Camping in Africa is a risky affair at the best of times, with toileting and showering a fine line between privacy and safety from predatory animals with a taste for humans.
Fortunately, here in Kakuma, lions and hyenas are further south. Instead, our wishful thoughts for privacy and personal dignity vanish when a snake slithers under our feet. Deadly scorpions can get into gaps and dark corners, and biting spiders are adept at dropping on us when we’re otherwise engaged.
But as many campers worldwide already know, roughing it for a week or two is fun. Maybe getting back to nature is in our genes, but there’s little fun when roughing it becomes permanent.
(People here from South Sudan and within the hosting community have a cultural belief; if they use a toilet to poo, it reduces his/her existence in life. Instead, they go into the surrounding shrub or desert. When we have flooding rain, moving water carries contagions and a higher risk of typhoid.)
A quarter of a million people in Kakuma Refugee Camp don’t have flushing toilets or running water showers. Related our articles: Camp Reality for LGBT and Our shelters and living conditions
