I wonder if any pictures were recorded of today’s work at the farm. As one of the many projects that I am involved in, today I did some design work (I will talk more about this at length somewhat later) for one project as well as helping to dig some trenches for the latrine that we are building. I imagine that few people who know me would think of myself as someone who would be skilled at such a work. But even though I certainly do not think anyone would expect such skill out of me, it is rewarding to have that skill anyway, especially when the need arises, as is has here.

The students recognized that the latrine was an American one and not a Thai or a Burmese one. Part of that is because Americans go about work in a certain way. If you are building a latrine, it needs to be built right. The way it was being built before we got involved was not acceptable–the holes were not deep enough, the pipes from the squat toilets (which depend on a gravity flow of sewage) were not sloped much at all, and the concrete used for the septic tanks did not have any venting, nor were there enough trench lines (we started digging two more today). None of this is acceptable, and it is intriguing that the people here would recognize that attention to dimensions and detail in such work as the sign of an American project rather than a local one.

During my time as a student of Engineering Management at the University of South Florida between 2006 and 2008, I spent a great deal of effort in coursework on Total Quality Management (which ended up being one of my graduate certificates). This is the sort of work that shows an attention, or a lack thereof, to the issue of quality. There are some major cultural barriers to doing things the right way–including the amount of effort that has to be done and the amount of time it takes to do something the right way. It is very tempting in such circumstances for people to want to do something within a few days that ‘looks alright’ even if it continually needs work because it was not done the right way. There is little calculation of the long-term costs in time and effort and money in cultures like this, which is something that some Americans (like myself) find more than a bit irksome.

But there is no doubt that building a latrine right is well worth the effort. Even if no one (not even myself) really likes having to talk about the way that waste is going to be dealt with in terms of inflow and outflow and gravel and sand and holes to relieve air pressure and prevent any explosions, it has to be done. It is always curious to see how one’s background and education and worldview commitments tend to show up at the oddest of occasions, and this sort of construction work is definitely going to be recorded for posterity–whether through photos or writing or being put on my resume (and that of the fellow teacher, who is soon to return home to go to his senior year of college), who is working on the project as well. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. It might as well be me.