adminFreedom Mutanda
Many years ago, I went to school, primary school, that is, on foot. In winter, it was unbearable as the bitter cold struck the bare feet relentlessly and the cracked feet cried silently while the crimson tears slowly oozed out and left marks on the gravel road that led to Emerald school.
All the way to school, our feet betrayed us big time as the big toes inter-changed to hit the small stones that littered the road; tarred roads at that time were as scarce as rhinos in many countries of Africa.
I thought about those bygone days when for the umpteenth time the state of Chipinge public toilets grabbed my attention last week.
When we arrived at school those years ago, we were very hesitant to go to the toilets largely because of the damp atmosphere that always affected the school. I think there were almost 800 students at the school and many of them had no shoes just like me. Shaka would have been very happy to train us to be soldiers; we needed no persuasion to go to war barefooted.
Confessing that I never wanted to go to the toilets when I had no shoes is in no way an understatement; I resented the notion of being a victim of diarrhoea, a condition that some of us jokingly called ‘‘running stomach’’ much to the dismay of our teachers.
The bottom line is, we went into the dingy toilets without shoes; our distaste was evident as spittle was everywhere in the toilet. One wonders whether this habit of spitting while one is in the toilet really shows one is a hygienic fellow. Why do people spit yet it is them who are doing the toilet thing?
I doubt it, I mean the degree of hygiene exhibited by the one who spits while in the toilet.
Our right to a clean environment as citizens of Zimbabwe is inalienable. Our local authorities take us for granted which in my view is a time bomb. They have to be responsible if they are going to get respect from the ratepayers.
Chipinge has one public toilet and it calls itself a town! Thousands visit the ‘‘town’’ every day to transact this and that business. Nature will always call whether you like it or not. When that happens, what do you do as a Zimbabwean citizen?
You rush to the dirty public toilet that is adjacent to the Chipinge Hotel when nature calls. Entering it for the first time, you are hit by an acrid stench that blows you away. There is only one space for one to use the urinal whereas those who intend to dispose of the hard stuff have to negotiate their way around stacks upon stacks of raw stool.
If there is cleaning done, then those who do it do not do a good job of it. The dirt that was deposited on a raised place on the urinal three months ago is still there.
We may blame the unhygienic members of the public. The blame game is as old as mankind; remember. Thousands of years ago, Adam and Eve passed the buck in an attempt to evade censure from the Almighty. Come on, Chipinge city fathers!
A 20-litre tin of paint can make a world of difference to that public toilet which is fast becoming a compound toilet in a town!
Making the toilet amenable to public use is the first thing the local authority must do as those who wait for long-distance transport at times use the benches ten metres from the toilet as waiting places. Again, some men while up time as they play draughts there though the unpalatable smell is always close by.
Many people frequent the ‘‘hotel’’ to urinate, but the main toilet is closed for the more serious stuff. Given such a scenario, people use the unclean toilets as a last resort yet these are people who pay rent and development levies if they live in the rural areas. Bus and commuter omnibus operators pay fees that must be used to renovate the public toilet to be a modern one.
Raw sewage is everywhere.
Sewage pervades the immediate area after one leaves the toilets making life difficult for those men and women who can’t perform the hop-step-and-jump routine. Green flies roam around looking for food to contaminate.
In the middle of all these disease-pulling antics, public figures remain silent. Do they want an epidemic to explode before they take steps to arrest the looming disaster?
If one goes to the market place on one’s way to the sprawling Gaza high- density area, there are some public toilets that do not serve the purpose they were built for. They are so dirty that I have seen some people risk arrest as they urinated outside the toilet in full glare of the public.
This writer feels that Blair toilets can contribute towards making Chipinge town a pleasant place which is friendly to travellers and the residents alike. These pit toilets must be regularly cleaned and that would make the town a better place to be than is currently the case.
Public users of these toilets in their present state must learn to respect other people by using the toilets in a manner that makes the next user appreciate and use it well. Surely, it is not difficult to deposit one’s stool into the right place. Some users complain that even when they use the toilet correctly, soon there is a filling up. It’s back to the council. At different intervals, the health monitor must check in order for the cleaning team to come and restore the cleanliness.
Council executives never use the toilets; thus, they may not know the extent of the rot that pervades the public toilet. If only they would invest a little of their time to check every hour the condition of the toilet, we may make the rising star of the east — Chipinge — to realise its full potential.
Zim-Asset is not talk and no action. Health drives a nation and, as such, it is high time the Chipinge town executives made the town the talk of the country as a health-conscious one after the toilet is given a facelift.
It is us who make ourselves healthy and not the other way round. Let us use the toilets correctly once they are brought back to their original shine with the assistance of the relevant branch of the council.
Online Reporter