So, the structure is an outhouse/shower room. Mine had two rooms, one for showering, and one for doing your business, but not all of them were like that. Some were one room, where you did both.
The bucket is my shower. They'd fill it up with water, and I'd splash it on myself. I would do this three times a day. In the morning and at night, they'd heat the water for me, and during the afternoon, it would be cold.
The hole in the ground is my toilet. I read somewhere that squatting was better for your health, because it reduces the chances of intestinal cancer. When you sit, all your intestines are loose, and stuff can get caught in the crevices, which decays and causes cancer, whereas when you squat, your intestines are bunched up, closing the crevices. You can create the squatting-effect on a sitdown toilet by putting a stool in front of your toilet, resting your feet on it and lean forward while you poop. Yeah, I'm not doing that. I got used to squatting, but, like the food, it's one of the things I won't miss.
The teapot is for washing your hands. See, the Malians didn't use toilet paper, so you would apply water while you wiped, and then wash your hands after. A number of Canadians, including me, were going "Full Malian" by the end of the program. Somebody said that his ass felt cleaner that way. Yeah, so did mine. Thing is, my hand felt dirtier. And I'd rather have a dirty ass than a dirty hand. Another person said they felt sore after wiping with toilet for the first time in months. I sure didn't. Toilet paper was something I was glad to start using again.
But you'd wash your hands with that teapot before and after meals, too. It wasn't just for the toilet.
Bamako had these electric squatters which were pretty gross, and they had these electric showers that didn't have shower heads and you couldn't control the temperature. They were the first ones we saw, and since they were more similar to our own electric appliances, we Canadians felt they were "Practice" before we had to do the real thing.
When we came back for the mid-phase camp, I said I missed my hole and bucket, because "My bucket doesn't turn off when I'm halfway through, and my hole doesn't spray shitty water when I flush it".
Honestly, the bucket was pretty relaxing. I got pretty comfortable with my bucket.
These are mud stoves that we built for the villagers. I only took one picture of them, and I regret it. In this photo, it's only partially finished. Later, we would dig out those grooves, and that's where the fuel would be placed. The alternative method for cooking is to just have a pot sit on three rocks. The stove is good, because it requires far less fuel, but the advantage of the three rock method is that you can put the rocks closer or further away from each other, depending on the size of the pot. A stove only works for one size of pot.
For some reason, this was the only real demand the village put to Canada World Youth. They were like "Sure, we'll feed and shelter you, but if you're going to stay here, you'd better build some stoves!" Thing is, building the stoves was way easier and more interesting than our regular work. And not everyone in the village wanted them. We had a few days where we would just tour around the village, asking people if they wanted to make them stoves. If they did, we would, but most people either didn't want one, or they didn't have the material ready. We had a few half-days because of this.
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