Two billion peoplelack sanitary facilities

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

The fame of Bill Gates as the emperor of the Microsoft world is today overshadowed by the workings of his ‘Creative Capitalism’ which is a glorified term for diverting the excess money of the capitalists to help improve basic needs of those in underdeveloped countries and communities. In other words it is helping the rich to get rid of their excess cash via charity work in states and communities in dire need of them, especially as regards the sanitary area, that is in the provision of toilets / toilettas (as termed in Europa where police also takes on the female gender as Policia).

Bill Gates and Melinda

Two point five billion people around the world are said to have no modern sanitary facilities. So Bill and Melinda, his life mate tend to spend their time in the disease–ridden enclaves of South Africa putting up toilets by the 10,000s rather than cruise along the Mediterranean thanking Almighty for their comforts and praying for more. Poor me, I have never set eyes on the pair but nothing prevents me from eulogizing them.

But the toilettas in Europe, the wayside ones (not the ones in super star hotels whose luxury is just breathtaking) I actually saw. Just as plain and dismal looking as ours. Nothing to write home about. They are in profusion and the boards prominently displayed which is a far scene from ours. Dotta Pilata yanawa is the local term for using the toilet but try that here in Sri Lanka. Not one in sight. Go home for it even if it is 100 km away. I stood in a queue for one, that is in Europa with four giggling girls ahead. Anywhere in the world their expertise is giggling.

There was a notice that read “One at a time” that puzzled this unsophisticated villager from Sri Lanka and then all the four dashed inside. More giggling and noise inside as though a rumbustious party was going on. Nobody batted an eyelid. So why should I? When I went in the water in the commode had turned a fairy pink which fact I remembered when days later at home I was reading the toilet technology that the Gates were to introduce in Africa.Nothing was going to be wasted, the excrement into charcoal and urine transformed and used for flushing. Did they turn it pink too to make it more attractive?But this was in the vicinity of Paris and the Gates were designing in Africa.

They have got sensitive to the fact that according to UN estimates half the hospitalisation in the developing world is due to the lack of proper toilets. About 1-5 million children are said to die each year from diarrheal disease. The two have gone on to glamorise their toilet project by giving it a fancy name ie re-inventing the toilet and had invited young students to bring in more ideas for a “Toilet Fair”. So far 370 million dollars have been spent on projects already begun.

For any reader who got tickled after reading the four–some who partied inside the toilet and expected more of that only to get mired in dry statistics on toilets and such like I will give some news about them. Though Europa prides itself on having invented the drainage technology, just visit the vicinity of Ek Tam Ge in Panduwasnuwara of Unmaada Chitra fame. That was pre-Buddhist times but already attempts at drainage sanitation were being explored. And at Yapahuwa palace in medieval Lanka there are evident signs of these.And here is more. Who uses toilets more? Males or females? The question never bothered me till this trip. I lost touch with my group in the premises of the Vatican. It being a national holiday the mighty gates of the building were closed making all visitors swarm the massive frontyard relieved here and there by statues of saints.

The whole edifice, kingpin of the Roman Catholic world is an amazing testimony to human endeavour emanating power and glory. Sited on the right banks of the historical Tiber river it is described as a land-locked sovereign city state whose territory comprises a walled enclave within the city of Rome.