I know how to do my laundry, thank you very much.
I've been washing my laundry by hand for over a year now, and guess what? I'm not actually terrible at it. My clothes come out unstained, soft, and smelling of detergent.
The women in my community cannot be convinced of this.
I used to do my laundry sitting outside my house, but I got tired of the way that people would crowd around me and stare at me while I washed, so within a few months of coming to my community, I moved laundry day inside. Sloshing water around on the floor is a small price to pay in order to avoid stares, laughter, and people straight up trying to pull my washing out of my hand.
However, although they no longer have the privilege of gawking at me as I clean, most of the women in town remain convinced that I am completely incapable of washing my clothes, and frequently offer to rectify this situation. Several people have come to my house to spontaneously offer me lessons in washing by hand. My friend Davi Aku gets mad every time she sees my washing on the line; she wants me to bring it to her house so we can wash together. Even the Queen Mother came by and gave me a very strange, silent, ten minute pantomime of clothes washing.
When I become the subject of these spontaneous little lessons, I try to take it in good grace. I smile, I nod, I act grateful for the secrets of the universe that they have unveiled. And then I continue doing things exactly the way I've always done them.
The thing is, yeah, I wash my clothes more slowly than they do. I take my time. I scrub a few pieces and take a little break to rest my hands. I could be better. But here's a little secret: I don't actually care about becoming better at washing my clothes.
Within a year, I will be gone from here, and probably never hand wash my clothing again. In the meantime, the way I do it gets the job done.
Now let's flip the script a little.
One of the goals of the Peace Corps Ghana Health Sector is to promote hand-washing. People's hands, here, tend to come into contact with a lot of disease causing agents. Lack of bathrooms means a lot more contact with feces, and uncaged animals means there is a lot of goat and chicken shit in the environment. Washing hands would prevent diarrhea, which kills children and babies.
It's not that people don't wash their hands at all. Sometimes they do. But there is no running water, so the favored technique is to take a bowl of water and splash the hands around inside. I have never seen people use hand soap in my community, but I am sure people use it in other places.
A few weeks ago, my counterpart and I had a discussion on hand washing with some of the mothers in the community. We talked about the most important times to wash your hands, and had some of the women demonstrate the proper way to wash, with flowing water and soap. They smiled, they nodded, they acted grateful for the secrets of the universe that I had unveiled.
And since then, predictably, they have continued doing things the exact same way they have always done them.
From their perspective: sure, it would be great for their hands to be a little cleaner. But their way sure leaves their hands looking as clean as my way. Pouring water over your hands also seems wasteful in an environment where every drop is precious. And sure, kids get sick sometimes, but that's what kids do. The immediate benefits of changing hand washing practices just aren't visible.
Ultimately, I'm just another outsider trying to get people to change the way things have always been.
Getting people to change their behaviors is hard. People have been unsuccessfully trying to get me to change my laundry ways for a year. People have been trying to encourage hand washing for decades.
I am not likely to change the way I wash my clothes.
Many people in my community are unlikely to change the way they wash their hands. And honestly, for this behavior to really change, I think they need access to tools that would make hand-washing easier. Running water in their homes would be a great place to start, but that isn't something I can provide for them, and it's not something they're likely to have in the foreseeable future.
It's something I try to think of every time I get frustrated at what seems to be the futility of many of the things I do here.
If I can't change--why should I expect anything else from the people I'm working with?
The women in my community cannot be convinced of this.
I used to do my laundry sitting outside my house, but I got tired of the way that people would crowd around me and stare at me while I washed, so within a few months of coming to my community, I moved laundry day inside. Sloshing water around on the floor is a small price to pay in order to avoid stares, laughter, and people straight up trying to pull my washing out of my hand.
However, although they no longer have the privilege of gawking at me as I clean, most of the women in town remain convinced that I am completely incapable of washing my clothes, and frequently offer to rectify this situation. Several people have come to my house to spontaneously offer me lessons in washing by hand. My friend Davi Aku gets mad every time she sees my washing on the line; she wants me to bring it to her house so we can wash together. Even the Queen Mother came by and gave me a very strange, silent, ten minute pantomime of clothes washing.
When I become the subject of these spontaneous little lessons, I try to take it in good grace. I smile, I nod, I act grateful for the secrets of the universe that they have unveiled. And then I continue doing things exactly the way I've always done them.
The thing is, yeah, I wash my clothes more slowly than they do. I take my time. I scrub a few pieces and take a little break to rest my hands. I could be better. But here's a little secret: I don't actually care about becoming better at washing my clothes.
Within a year, I will be gone from here, and probably never hand wash my clothing again. In the meantime, the way I do it gets the job done.
Now let's flip the script a little.
One of the goals of the Peace Corps Ghana Health Sector is to promote hand-washing. People's hands, here, tend to come into contact with a lot of disease causing agents. Lack of bathrooms means a lot more contact with feces, and uncaged animals means there is a lot of goat and chicken shit in the environment. Washing hands would prevent diarrhea, which kills children and babies.
 |
| People only ever ask me to paint the nails on their right hands; the left hand, which is more in contact with feces, is considered unclean. |
It's not that people don't wash their hands at all. Sometimes they do. But there is no running water, so the favored technique is to take a bowl of water and splash the hands around inside. I have never seen people use hand soap in my community, but I am sure people use it in other places.
A few weeks ago, my counterpart and I had a discussion on hand washing with some of the mothers in the community. We talked about the most important times to wash your hands, and had some of the women demonstrate the proper way to wash, with flowing water and soap. They smiled, they nodded, they acted grateful for the secrets of the universe that I had unveiled.
And since then, predictably, they have continued doing things the exact same way they have always done them.
From their perspective: sure, it would be great for their hands to be a little cleaner. But their way sure leaves their hands looking as clean as my way. Pouring water over your hands also seems wasteful in an environment where every drop is precious. And sure, kids get sick sometimes, but that's what kids do. The immediate benefits of changing hand washing practices just aren't visible.
Ultimately, I'm just another outsider trying to get people to change the way things have always been.
Getting people to change their behaviors is hard. People have been unsuccessfully trying to get me to change my laundry ways for a year. People have been trying to encourage hand washing for decades.
I am not likely to change the way I wash my clothes.
Many people in my community are unlikely to change the way they wash their hands. And honestly, for this behavior to really change, I think they need access to tools that would make hand-washing easier. Running water in their homes would be a great place to start, but that isn't something I can provide for them, and it's not something they're likely to have in the foreseeable future.
It's something I try to think of every time I get frustrated at what seems to be the futility of many of the things I do here.
If I can't change--why should I expect anything else from the people I'm working with?
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