Siamvula WASHE meeting

Vwaali getting started

On Thursday morning, the new WATSAN (Water and Sanitation) field officer, Vwaali asked if I’d come to his WASHE (Water And Sanitation Hygiene Education) meeting in the bush. He was leaving in 20 minutes—oh, and could I also help with some of the presenting??

a few participants

I canceled two meetings, grabbed my Nalgene, and we were off… well, we were off after we stopped to pick up items at Spar and waited for the bread shop to open so we could buy a hundred buns to take for tea. Oh, and then we stopped for some tomatoes and onions… and then we were off…

Vwaali may have missed his true calling in life by studying water engineering instead of theatre. This fellow keeps his crowd in stitches as he portrays everything from how to tell if a person has tapeworms and needs to be de-wormed, to why an old plastic bag is not a good substitute for leaves or toilet tissue…

Although the workshop was almost solely in Tonga, I clearly understood most of what was been taught. Vwaali begged me to teach the final flip chart poster highlighting four ways villagers can treat water to make it safe for drinking. After watching him hop around his brushy stage for three hours engaging his participants, I was reminded once again why I am an accountant not a public speaker! Maybe I should have taught the final drinking water points though… just to run an experiment to see how fast people would fall asleep without Vwaali’s entertaining antics.