Do-It-Yourself Utilities, Part Two

In my first post on utilities, I talked about electricity and dish & handwashing. Now I'd like to fill you in on another essential service: human waste management.

We have two latrines on our compound. Below is the one I usually use because it's closest to my house. We call it the "choo" (rhymes with "slow"), which means toilet in Swahili--my colleagues picked up the term in Kenya. It's shorter and a little more catchy to say than "latrine."

Our choo pit was dug by hand and is about 9 feet deep and 4 feet across. A cement slab covers the top of the pit.

The "choo" with my house in the background

Our custom-made "throne" & toilet paper holder

Made from a 5 litre bleach bottle by my creative colleague Julie

My colleague Daniel recently built a composting toilet. The pit is only about 4 feet deep and is rectangular in shape. The toilet boasts a real toilet seat and lid. After each "deposit" a cup of ashes are put into the pit to help facilitate the composting process. When the pit is 3/4 full, Daniel will drag the cement slab to a new location and then put about a foot of earth on top of the old pit. A tree can then be planted there and it will do really well, nourished by all that rich compost underneath.

Composting toilet made by my colleague Daniel

Inside the composting toilet: another creative t.p. holder here, too.