Even with the good Western food, air conditioned malls, movie theaters and motorbike rides through the mountains, the thing I love most about Chiang Mai right now is the toilet paper, western flush toilets and soap in the bathrooms. Even if it's not all three all the time, public bathrooms in Mae Sot are 0 for 3, so even 1 for 3 is a step up. And No Poe Refugee Camp, where I was for 8 days before coming to Chiang Mai, had one tap for every five houses so running water in the bathrooms or kitchen was kind of out of the question. Most washing areas had some sort of soap, but it was more likely to be dish washing soap or detergent than a bar of soap. And because the water to flush the toilet and the water to wash your hands after using the toilet are bucketed out of the same plastic garbage can, it's hard not to think about all of the cross-contamination.
Anyway, today, the training center where I'm taking my class, the coffee shop where I studied and did work, the Japanese restaurant where I ate dinner, and the house where I'm staying, all had/have all toilet paper, western flush toilets and soap! What a treat!
And in case you're wondering about my job, among other things, I take things like this and then work with Karen people to figure out how to get similar messages across to little children in Karen State. Over the month of October, we had two trainings. From those, about 10 songs about handwashing, diarrhea, dehydration and breastfeeding were written, at least half were recorded in a recording studio at No Poe Camp and at least one karaoke music video was made. It's going through some edits right now, but I'll get it up on Youtube as soon as I can.
The video below was the public premiere of our first hit, Thay Na Seu, from the training held at No Poe Camp. They gathered children, taught them the song, taught them the moves, then sang it with them while one guy played guitar. After the song, they asked all the children to wash their hands (with soap and running water at the tap) and then our people put cookies in the childrens' little clean hands. Yay public health! (And yay for hopefully having enough pictures and videos of little kids singing, dancing and washing their hands to keep the donors happy for the next 6 months!)
The video below was the public premiere of our first hit, Thay Na Seu, from the training held at No Poe Camp. They gathered children, taught them the song, taught them the moves, then sang it with them while one guy played guitar. After the song, they asked all the children to wash their hands (with soap and running water at the tap) and then our people put cookies in the childrens' little clean hands. Yay public health! (And yay for hopefully having enough pictures and videos of little kids singing, dancing and washing their hands to keep the donors happy for the next 6 months!)
The lyrics go like this (I think):
Before you eat (2x)
Wash your hands (2x)
Wash with soap and water (2x)
Your hands are clean! (2x)
After going to the bathroom (2x)
Wash your hands (2x)
Wash with soap and water (2x)
Be healthy! (2x)
When someone has diarrhea (2x)
It spreads really easily (2x)
Wash with soap and water (2x)
Prevention! (2x)
Woo hoo!
The video below is the concert from our first training in Mae Sariang where it all began.
If you want to read more about these two last trainings, Sam, the other fellow, wrote a lot in her blog.
Here are her entries on the Mae Sariang and Noh Poe trainings. Lots of pretty pictures too!
Reading your blog, I am reminded of what we take for granted here.Great health teaching video. Proper handwashing has become a big teaching issue in the states a since the seasonal flu and h1n1 virus resurfaced. I'm told you wash as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday.
ReplyDeleteI've looked at Sam's blog as well. Interesting.
Thanks for the posts, the pictures and videos.