Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene December 2018 Vol.13 No.6 | Page 19
Sanitation
Bruce decided she would go with what her subjects found
“acceptable”. She chose as the subject of her work in
India a poor village where she had worked before, and was
familiar to those who lived there.
“I had worked in the village before for the New York
Times for a story on women and work, and people knew
and trusted me. I know everyone in the village and they
knew I was not going to be disrespectful.
In a community toilet building in Delhi, four women wait for the
one working stall to become free
“I wanted to make sure that it was something everyone
can relate to so that it was about people not just about
poverty.
“It was kind of crazy timing. A huge hurricane came
through and then you have contamination. One drop of
cholera and it just sweeps through.”
She was particularly struck by the bayakou – latrine
cleaners – whom she photographed for the project.
In the village of Peepli Kheera, with a population of 800 people,
there is only one toilet, which is kept under lock and key. The entire
community defecates outside – men in the fields on one side of the
village, women on the other
“In Haiti the people who are on the frontline are the
bayakou who go into the latrines, which is this taboo
subject.
“They can only work at night and people throw rocks
at them even if they employ them. They are like the
superheroes of Haiti. We also worked with a small NGO
called Soil in Haiti, which brings composting toilets to
slum areas and then collects them – like milkmen – to give
to farmers to use as compost.”
And although the pictures are beautiful both as images and
in their expression of a particular kind of vulnerability,
Bruce adds that she was anxious to avoid the trap of
exoticising the subject by emphasising its otherness to a
western audience.
“For me it is not about making things exotic but to
make them boring and important but still as beautiful as
possible.”
The slums of northern Haiti suffered from cholera after Hurricane
Matthew, exacerbated by the lack of proper toilets. In this
community, people often defecate in the lanes between their homes
“It is not only an issue about diseases that people are
facing. For women, this is the time of day when women
are often raped in India, Africa and Haiti – when [they] are
most vulnerable and trying to find some privacy.”
The health issue was also dramatised for her in Haiti,
where she arrived after Hurricane Matthew had devastated
the country.
Bruce has been back to the village in India since the
images were first published – to a pleasant surprise.
“Since the pictures came out the Indian government has
been to the village and they have built a community toilet.
Who knows? Maybe they were going to come anyway but
the the villagers are very happy.”
Source: The Guardian
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • December 2018
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