Certified

That is a photo of Ian and a certificate he received Friday afternoon.

For what, you ask?

I am now certified to teach hand washing. After passing an intense sixteen-hour course about the subject, I am now prepared to teach and be a responsible example for others.

Now, I know, you might be asking: Can he be serious?

Hey, could I make this up? Let alone forge a mayor’s signature. Or the idea that someone could dedicate sixteen academic hours to hand washing.

My office is involved in programs about access to clean water and avoiding contamination to protect the watershed and the health of the citizens. Not only do they work with small communities to implement water programs, but they also run educational programs to teach the residents about proper use of the new system and other things they can do to avoid future infections.

Hand washing is one of those subjects.

Here is the route of contamination, as I learned on Friday.

Fecal matter --> Hand --> Mouth

So the question is, how and where can we stop this?

Well, if we wash the hand before it takes the arrow to the mouth, then we can prevente contamination. And why is this important: Because diarrhea is one of the leading killers of youth under the age of five, not to mention how many other health risks it poses (dehydration, malnutrition, etc).

Think about it like this, if someone contracts a horrible parasite or infection from touching something contaminatd, then they have to go to the doctor, then the pharmacy. This all costs Money. But if you teach someone how to wash their hands, they not only avoid the infection, but also the associated costs. Much easier and cheaper just to wash the hand (according to a study, nearly 100% of homes in southern Ecuador have some form of soap).

Are you still laughing about the fact that I spent sixteen hours learning about hand washing? Well, I would, too. Plus, imagine the conversation value of this conference (Somewhere between being a hide-and-go-seek legend and lassoing a cow).

Now this workshop was more geared toward giving people in the social work and public health field the tools they need to teach these ideas in the community. But that doesn’t mean that the people attending the conference won’t learn a few things as well.

I missed the first part of the conference because I had a meeting at the eco reserve. So I asked my coworker what she learned. She said that the session about proper hand washing technique was the most beneficial.

They emphasized the importante of washing between the fingers, because you have to realize that the diarrhea-causing bacteria can also stay in there and avoid being cleaned by the soap.

Not only did I get the workbook that teaches me how to impart this knowledge on other people, but they also gave us eighteen flashcards with hand washing-related picotes: there are five different cartoonish images of poop, a image of happy bacteria because someone is only using water to wash their hands, an image of dead bacteria because someone is using soap and water to wash their hands, a picture of someone cutting soap, and several of sparkling clean hands. If you want to see these, all you have to do is look on the wall of my house.




That`s not challah, my friend. That is doody.

But before I get ahead of myself with all of this, let me break down the six-step program.

The first step is to teach the people that when they are clean, they feel fresh and smooth (or so fresh and so clean.) The purpose of this session was to get at the motivation for being clean.

When you wash, you feel agile, pretty, awake, happy, interesting, relaxed, healthy, free of bacteria, and confident in yourself). To be dirty, on the other hand, makes you feel stinky, horrible, vagabond-like, sweaty, oily, and possible smelling of fish or feces (I’m just taking this from the manual).

This lasted forty-five minutes. Then there was a brief break, followed by a session titled: “To be clean is to be healthy.” The goal of this session was to explain the connection between cleanliness and well-being.

It is commonly known around here that microbacteria, parasites, and bacteria cause stomach problems. This session was more to reinforce this important idea. It then connected the dirty hand as the primary agent in moving the contaminated material into the human system, once again emphasizing the importance of keeping them clean.

Then, there was lunch. I’m not going to judge, but a very small percentage of the audience went to the bathroom to wash their hands. Puzzling.

But I can excuse them this time, because even though they had been taught the motivation for washing hands, they hadn’t quite had the technical sessions that would explain the proper technique.

After lunch, we had the “Use soap and safe water with good pressure” session.

The main takeaways from the session

• Use soap
• Use safe water
• Use safe water with good pressure

It was during this session that they emphasized the importance of scrubbing between fingers and cutting the soap into several pieces so that you can keep some in various locations throughout the house.

Session four of six was about where to store the soap in the house. This required the group to draw house maps. Afterwards, we had to identify the risk zones where we are most prone to contract bacteria. These spots include the bathroom, the kitchen, and the space where the children play. Then we had to create a plan of how to reduce the risk in these areas. Simple solution: soap near the sinks.

The fifth session was about how to cut the chain of contamination that I mentioned earlier. This involved us creating skits to show the doody makes it from poop to mouth. My group’s presentation was about how the kids were playing outside and came into contact with the fecal material of their dog. Bobi, and then didn’t wash their hands when coming home, and then ate chicken and rice and, unknowingly, Bobi’s doody.

Session six was more specifics about the health effects of the contamination: diarrhea, giardia (and its associated Golden Rainbow), trichuris. They also remindedus that all poop can contaminate. Even though the little kids might not have diseases in their system, their crap can still contaminate.

Six in-depth sessions about the ins and outs of hand washing.

Any question. You can ask me.

I’m certified.