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7.4 Observations of Water Use Practices
Hundred
percent of the surveyed families claimed that they used piped water for drinking and cooking purposes,
but
we have observed that some people were still using the surface (pond) water for washing cooking utensils
(Photo
7.1). It is interesting to note that they were carrying out the activities on the side of a hanging latrine,
meaning the knowledge about water contamination was poor among at least some of the people, even in 2002.
During focus group discussions, it was revealed that some families who could not afford to install the water storage
tanks still used the ponds. The piped water was available for certain hours of a day, and as mentioned earlier
(Chapter 5), if families couldn’t finish their activities within those specific hours, they had no choice but the use
the pond water.
7.5 Hand Washing Practices
Hand washing is an important hygiene practice for both personal and family reasons in relation to health. Proper
hand washing has been reported to significantly control diarrhoeal diseases in Bangladesh (Khan, 1982). The
people of the Indian sub-continent; including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal, clean themselves after defecation
with their hands using water due to cultural reasons. The people of Bauniabad are no different in that they
follow the same custom, but it also could be that they are forced to follow the custom due to the fact that they
can not afford toilet paper. They eat food using their hands; therefore, if the hands are not properly washed it can
contaminate their food, water and many other things, which can lead to the transmission of fecal-oral pathogens.
The hand washing practices, in general, were poor (Table 7.2). More than half of the women washed one hand as
opposed to washing both hands before eating, but this may be due to cultural reasons, as many people living in
the Indian sub-continent only use one hand to eat. On the other hand, after defecation, majority of the women
washed both of their hands.
Regarding the use of the soap, only just over half of the women
washed their hand/hands with the use of soap be-
fore eating. In contrast, roughly only 10% of the women washed their hand/hands using soap after defecation.
Previous
studies have reported that the
hands of rural and urban
women in Bangladesh are heavily contaminated
(Hoque
et al., 1994b; Hoque et al., 1995).
It is important that
both hands
are properly
rubbed with an agent and
rinsed with an adequate quantity of water to clean them (Hoque, 2003). The women of Bauinabad claimed that,
even though they had access to safe water, it was still a financial burden to buy soap as it was quite expensive, and
thus
they used it sparingly when ever they could afford it. According to focus group discussions, it was revealed
that
the women of Bauniabad were not aware of the need for washing both hands, or even using the importance
of using
soap.
Table 7.2: Hand washing practices.
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