West Pokot: Have a pit latrine, keep the doctor away

Toilet.

Having a toilet is considered so normal it barely rates a second thought. The common assumption is that every home has a toilet. But this is hardly the case in Tamkal, West Pokot County where a cluster of homesteads without a toilet does not raise eyebrows among locals who found open spaces ideal.

Gladys Kirasia and her family had no toilet and always did their business in the bush around their home. She had not linked illnesses suffered by family members to using the bush and their efforts “consumed by animals and pets and which they brought to the homestead exposing us to illnesses like typhoid. Now we have a toilet and we all use it,” she says shyly.