Scene 6: The Signal Hill Exchange

Backstory:

The closest Enviro Loo System to Langrug serving large numbers of people is at the top of Signal Hill in Cape Town. To ensure the acceptance of the Enviro Loo toilets in Zwelitsha, the community needs to see the system first hand and know how it operates.

Cast of Characters:

Scott, Lorraine, Morgan Boyd, Adi Kumar, Alfred, Seya, Funeka, and various other Langrug/Zwelitsha community members.

Setting:

The top of Signal Hill

Scene:

Morgan traveled with Scott and Lorraine to Signal Hill to meet with about 20 community members that had traveled from Zwelitsha to view the Enviro Loo system in place there.

Before the community arrived the advisors had a meeting with Adi. All parties expressed their concern about how to move forward if the community rejected the system after seeing it operating.

When the community members arrived Morgan greeted Alfred, the first person off the bus. Many other faces that she did and didn’t recognize greeted her, and Morgan shook hands and spoke to each one.

Soon after, the important part of the visit began. The women and men separated and went their separate ways to view the facilities. When they emerged they began discussing how they felt about the facility. Morgan heard no complaints, as everyone appreciated how clean it was and that there was no odor. Community members started asking Alfred, Siya, and Funeka questions which they helpfully replied. When they didn’t know the answers they posed the questions in turn to Scott, Lorraine and Morgan.

Morgan had been documenting the event with her camera, and Scott encouraged her to take some pictures of the drying tanks of the system, which were blocked off by a fence. One of the workers employed by the park saw Scott and Morgan struggling to see over the fence, and came over to let them in.

Nearly immediately Scott opened the covers to see into the systems, and found a surprise waiting for them.  The inside of the tanks was not the well maintained, dry solid waste they were anticipating.

Reflection and Learning:

The primary concern going into the meeting was whether or not the community would like the dry sanitation option. We did not expect to discover that a system that we had been told multiple times by Enviro Loo was a good example, wouldn’t be any where close to being a system that was dehydrating the waste.