Latrines and Hot Showers

Hosting 550 volunteers over a four-and-a-half-year period at the edge of the Sahara Desert presented many challenges for us. These were wonderful people who were volunteering for a minimum of 30 days to serve the Lord in a barren place. Many of them would make comments like this: “I don’t know where Hell is, but this is as close to it as I want to be.”

So many of them gave up so much to come and help us with the community development projects. Some actually quit their jobs to come and serve. Few people were fortunate enough to have four weeks of vacation, so they would quit their livelihood to come to serve the Lord in West Africa.

It was such a joy to help these volunteers to have life-enriching experiences. Many of them had life-changing experiences. Dozens returned another year to help us. Over fifty of those volunteers later served as long-term missionaries around the world.

One might assume that pastors would be numerous among these volunteers, but I only remember about a dozen among the 550 people. They were factory workers, farmers, funeral home staff, car salesmen, bankers, truck drivers, teachers, college students, welders and store clerks. These were the “salt of the earth” type people who either used their savings or raised money to purchase a very expensive air ticket to come to serve alongside us.

Back to the challenges… Every volunteer had to participate in some orientation before their trip. No matter how much you talk to folks about some guidelines, there are people who do not pay attention to what has been presented. For example, we had a couple of volunteers who refused to give up smoking before they came. We had a strict no smoking policy while serving with this project. One of the guys not only sneaked around and smoked, but he shared cigarettes with villagers—who had no access to cigarettes. After a “come-to-Jesus” meeting, this particular volunteer decided that he did not want to be driven into Ouagadougou to board a plane that night, so he stopped his malfeasance.

Orientation leaders stressed the scarcity of amenities at our volunteer camp, but we still had some folks who asked us, “Where is the nearest laundromat?” Response: there is not one in this whole country and the nearest washing machine is four hours away in Ouagadougou. We hired villagers to do the washing by hand. “Where is the mattress for my cot?” Response: Sorry, but there are no mattresses—just the nylon stretched on aluminum frame cot. “Why can’t I go swimming in the water catchments that we built?” Response: You might upset the crocodiles. Not to mention the infestation of bilharzia. “Where do I hang my panty hose?” Response: Throw them away.

The volunteers were very generous. Many of them went home with only the clothes on their back as they had given their clothes to some villagers. Their generosity wasn’t always for the good of the villagers. For example, they would leave their multi-vitamins and supplements with the villagers when the villagers had no opportunity to buy any more, so they would use them for a short period of time.

Despite the fact that we had numerous venomous snakes where we lived, we only had one snake bite during the 4 ½ year project. By the grace of God, we happened to have an injection of anti-venom serum in our kerosene refrigerator, and that serum saved a life.

As mentioned earlier, only the bare essentials were provided for the volunteers. We had men and women’s latrines that sported plastic toilet seats. Ladies had private showers, but the best thing about the showers was the hot water. A couple of the volunteers helped me to construct a solar hot water system. Now, there were no solar panels available in the country at that time, and if they were, the cost was prohibitive, so we used materials that we could buy in the capitol. We built a huge shallow box on an incline to catch the most sunshine, and then we built a series of galvanized pipes in the box where the water would flow up through the pipes and into the welded-together barrels. We covered the big shallow box with black plastic and then laid chicken wire over the black plastic to protect it from tearing. The barrels were also painted black. In 115-degree sun it does not take long to heat up the water. As the water temperature increased it rose through the labyrinth of pipes which fed into the bottom of the barrels.

Volunteers were not hard to please, but having a hot shower after a long, hard, and hot day put all of them in a good mood and prepared them for a good night’s rest on their cots.

The latrine situation provided many good stories, especially from the ladies. One night as the volunteers gathered for devotional, one of the ladies was upset because she was shining her flashlight into the latrine and dropped it. One of the guys asked her, “Why were you shining your flashlight into the latrine?” No response was given, but everyone had a good laugh.

During the devotional time, one of the songs that we sang that night was “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning!!”