Louis Buck 10 has latrines on his mind. As co-president of Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering Leadership Projects, Louis spent his spring break scouting locations for HELPs upcoming water sanitation summer project in Tanzania. Designing effective, affordable latrine technology is crucial, Louis stresses, because Tanzanians lives " and a $200,000 grant " are on the line.
So what did you do over break?
We were in Tanzania for two weeks trying to scope out locations for our project for the summer. This is a new HELP project that was set up with the Dickey Center. In Tanzania, we're working with the Jane Goodall Institute around Gombe Stream National Park, where Jane Goodall did all of her work with chimpanzees. So I went to check out the different towns and see which one would be a good fit for what we're looking to do with our latrine project.
Why latrines?
Well, we're working in Mwamgongo, which is a fishing village right along Lake Tanganyika, which is at the very western part of Tanzania and separates it from the Congo. There's very poor sanitation there in general. They have a gravity-fed water system that JGI set up, but the actual quality of the water in their river and lake is very, very poor -- they use open-pit latrines that get flooded during the rain seasons, and some of the cultural practices involve not using latrines at all on the beach. The school latrines were in particularly bad shape -- flies everywhere. We went to a restaurant, for example, and there was food being cooked openly with a coverless latrine about 15 feet away. The flies could just go back and forth -- that's how a lot of intestinal worms and things like that spread. Also, skin infections are common and there's a cholera outbreak every year -- all these stem from feces in the water.
Louis Buck '10 has latrines on his mind. As co-president of Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering Leadership Projects, Louis spent his spring break scouting locations for HELP's upcoming water sanitation summer project in Tanzania. Designing effective, affordable latrine technology is crucial, Louis stresses, because Tanzanians' lives -- and a $200,000 grant -- are on the line.
How do you plan to fix the problem?
They're trying to use VIP latrines -- ventilation-improved pit latrines -- that are generally pretty expensive. We want to provide a cheaper composting latrine as an alternative. In composting latrines, plant matter with a lot of carbon is added to the latrine after every use. That carbon, in combination with a smaller hole, provides a lot of interaction with the soil, which allows the matter to decompose a lot faster and in a safer manner. In big VIP latrines, waste just builds up and there's no decomposition to get rid of the pathogens. Compost latrines have been used in other parts of Africa and South America, and have been pretty successful. This spring, we're going to be working with the organic farm to build a prototype there and try to get a good design. Then we'll go back to Tanzania this summer to do pilot projects to see how the latrines play out -- how people like them, whether they're used or not.
Do you have plans for any other projects?
We're also working with an engineering professor from the University of Dar es Salaam whose specialty is in energy and who has done a lot with cook stoves. Because families and small industries use very inefficient open fires, deforestation is a big problem. So we'll go over to the university for two weeks to design a more efficient stove that we feel might be able to make more improvements in the same town.
How many stoves and latrines are you actually going to build?
We would probably just do maybe three or four pilot latrines, because we just want to make sure they're going to be accepted and they're going to work before we have a more large-scale implementation. Same thing as far as the stove project goes -- we'll teach a few women how to build a few clay stoves, and they'll teach others. We're just aiming for a long-term relationship with these communities. We're trying to improve the various aspects of their lives that are difficult right now, but we want to do it all on a small scale with the hope that the people there will be able to replicate it themselves, without support from foreign countries.
How did the locals receive you over spring break?
People took us around and showed us their homes so we could see what living conditions were like, 'how we can help?' And the kids there are just so fun. I think probably at least half of them had never seen a white person before, so everyone just went crazy. Wherever we went, there was a crowd of like 30 kids running after us. In general, everybody there is just super friendly. Nobody takes themselves too seriously, which was very refreshing coming out of the States. Everybody's very, very happy in Tanzania from what I found.
Are you looking forward to anything specific about this summer?
I'm really looking forward to knowing some Swahili, because a few of us are taking Swahili this spring. I'm excited because it killed me not knowing it -- everyone's really friendly, so all I wanted to do was talk to them. I'm just really pumped to get back there. It's such a fun country.
What about this $200,000 contest?
We're competing for this Green Mountain Coffee grant. It would be pretty perfect because this area we're working in is this up-and-coming coffee-growing area. At this point we've made it to the finals of Green Mountain's contest -- we're competing against a couple other organizations with various goals. The $200,000 would basically cover all of our costs for five years. We're in the lead right now, but not by too much. At this point, we're just trying to get people to help us out by voting for us.
