Thomas is counting his losses. It is market day and every minute counts for the taxi driver. There is no time to waste attending to nature’s call.
But his system is in disagreement. It is taking unusual time to empty his bowel at the foot of the Kabakaba Hills overlooking Ho.
Anytime he stood up to clean his “backside”, Thomas felt pressed and quickly went down stylishly to defecate, swerving plant sprouts.
Three other taxi drivers and an elderly man, who also came to defecate in the forest, had left.
Within 10 minutes, Thomas shifted to three different locations, looking for a “comfortable” place and where he could have a clear view of his taxi, parked on the road leading to the Municipal Forestry Office.
The foot of the Hill is a major forest attraction in Ho and believed to hold rock-filtered pure water.
But the beautiful forest, suitable for forest walk, mushroom and snail picking has become a “mass toilet” for taxi drivers and people in the Kpoe community of the Bake-Gblefe Electoral area in Ho.
Some taxi drivers told the GNA their preference for the forest area was to avoid long queues at public toilets, but admit the practice was not the best.
Investigations indicate that about 80 per cent of the over 700 people in that neighbourhood do not have domestic toilets and defecate openly in the forest.
Ironically a good number of the people refuse to patronise a 20-seater water closet public toilet constructed by the Ho Municipal Assembly in the area.
It is unclear why the refusal to use the facility even in 2010, when the cost for a visit was reduced from 20 pesewas to 10 pesewas.
Yao Kutana, Unit Committee Chairman of the area told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the locals simply walk past the public toilet to defecate in the forest.
At sunset, young people could be seen descending the Hill to a local drinking spot (solom base) in the community to fraternise after defecating without washing their hands.
They use the common calabash for serving all customers, shake hands and eat meat with their bare hands without washing them.
Another worry is taxi drivers who jump behind their steering wheels and handle money without washing their hands after defecating in the forest, with the possibility of leaving particles of faeces on the monies.
Apart from the forest, teens and children in the community defecate in nearby bushes close to their homes in the wee hours of the morning.
Consequently, the area has become very unsightly, littered with faeces and polythene bags, some containing faeces producing unpleasant smell.
During the rainy season, the situation is worse with rain water washing faecal matter into homes.
A few people have potable water in their homes in the community but a good number of them depend on a polluted stream, Ahorlor, which runs through the Hill.
When taps are closed for days, the whole community, including people from other parts of Ho descend on Ahorlor stream for drinking water.
The most affected are inhabitants of Adaklu, parts of Mafi and Abutia who depend on Kalakpa River, into which, Ahorlor and other streams in Ho flow.
About 192,969 people in the Ho Municipality are also at risk of drinking polluted water through their taps following the frequent burst of pipes of the Ghana Water Company water pumping station (Ho17) on the Hill top.
Consumption of human faeces through unintended channels are said to be the cause of most diarrhoea and cholera diseases with open defecation being a major challenge.
Available statistics in 2015 indicates that about 19% of Ghanaians, representing nearly five million people, defecate in the open every day.
In 2014, a total of 248 people were killed and 29,000 infected with cholera in the country, with the Ho Municipal area having its share of the epidemic.
That epidemic cost the Ho Municipal Assembly and some private and charitable organisations, some thousands of cedis, an amount which could have gone into the construction of a health post or a classroom block.
Checks at health facilities in the Ho Township show that diarrhoea and cholera cases increase during rainy seasons with loss of lives.
The regional capital is among districts, which attained 80 per cent pass mark in efforts at stopping open defecation through Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) strategy, but it appears Kpoe, begs for more attention.
Mr Samuel Hansen Galley, Ho Municipal Environmental Health Officer said the Kabakaba Hill situation could cause dysentery, worm infestation, cholera and typhoid in Kpoe and among communities, which depend on Ahorlor, downstream.
He said poor staffing; resulting in one Environmental Officer attending to 7,000 people in the Municipality was affecting the office’s ability to handle the situation.
This state of affairs raises doubt if targets by the region to be declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) between 2016 and 2018 could be met.
Indications are that CLTS is changing open defecation behaviours in thousands of rural communities.
As at the end of 2014, none of the 769 rural communities in the Volta Region where CLTS had been introduced had reported a cholera case since the outbreak in June that year, which affected 680 people in the Region.
It is therefore imperative for the Environmental Health Office to consider that strategy in helping change behaviours in the Kpoe community and stop open defecation.
The community must be triggered. The Environmental Health Office should engage the Information Services Department for a visual demonstration and education on effects of open defecation to generate interest in community champions and natural leaders on the issue.
Good examples and best sanitation practices from communities in the region should also be shown to the people so they could be challenged to take positive decisions and actions.
Communities with success stories in stopping open defecation could be brought in as well to mentor Kpoe.
The Assembly-member for the area and members of the Unit Committee could also be engaged to form a taskforce to arrest people who defecate in the forest for prosecution by the Environmental Office.
The Municipal Assembly could again help erect signposts in the community to warn people against open defecation and particularly, defecating in the forest, with defaulters paying spot fine and facing prosecution.
The Assembly could also liaise with Banks and financial institutions to help build domestic toilets for the people as a soft loan, knowing that its biggest resource is healthy human beings.
These measures when implemented could help regain the beauty of Kabakaba Hill and save the individuals and the country, the cost in treating diseases related to open defecation.
The GoG/UNICEF WASH Programme estimates that between 2010 and mid-2014, more than 600,000 people from about 2,600 rural communities had stopped open defecation in 38 districts.
Kpoe could join those open defecation-free communities with concerted efforts from all stakeholders.
A GNA Feature by A.B. Kafui Kanyi
Source: GNA
