déchets. stigmatisations, commerces, politiques ... - Viva Rio en Haiti

the extended families and the relations between
family and territoriality: the latrines are used by
whoever lives there or has friends or relatives at
the locality.
Questioned on the topic, residents in this micro-region
replied that the main problem in the area
was not the number of latrines but the lack of
cleaning (vidange), which makes them unusable.
We observed a large number out of use, due, people
said, to a lack of funds to pay the cleaning professionals,
the bayakous (in the following section
we describe the criteria guiding their work and
the price formation logic involved in latrine cleaning).
In the case of rented housing, many residents
complained that the landlords failed to meet their
duty to keep the latrines clean and in working order.
For their part, some of the landlords interviewed,
also residents of the zone, complained of
the high prices charged by the bayakous and the
impossibility of cleaning the latrines with the desired
frequency.
In micro-region 6, distinguished as we saw by
the widespread presence of lakous, there are notably
fewer latrines than in micro-region 4, situated
on the other side of the Grande Rue. Sometimes
there are only one or two latrines per lakou. This
is the case, for example of the Nenê lakou, occupied
by around 300 people. It possesses a single
latrine, which at the time of the research was unusable
due to the lack of funds to pay for it to be
cleaned, which normally occurs once or twice per
year (photo 35).
In micro-regions like these with few latrines,
heavily urbanized and situated some distance
from the waste dumps, other defecatory practices
are employed. People may use bags or pots and
throw them into the canals or ravines. There are
also other techniques, such as the parachute: defecating
in a plastic bag and hurling it as far away
as possible. For various reasons, linked among
other factors to shame, these actions generally
take place in the evening or at night.
Shame is undoubtedly a key factor in local people’s
‘defecatory habits.’ Notably it also determines
the localization of the latrines, which are seldom
exposed at the front of dwellings, ensuring that
people cannot be seen entering or leaving them. 27
9. BAYAKOUS
The city of Port-au-Prince does not possess
– and never has possessed – a domestic sewage
system to channel fecal matter. This has led to the
widespread use of latrines and, in wealthier districts,
septic tanks not linked to networks.
As mentioned above, bayakou is the word
used to designate the professional workers who
manually clean the latrines in both the urban and
rural environments. Once again the term is stigmatizing
(used to talk about ‘them’) and not a category
of self-identifi cation. The bayakou profession,
in the country, is the most stigmatized of all
the activities existing in the Haitian social world.
It is performed by men (no women are involved)
and takes place at night in the dark. Some professionals
keep their identities hidden not only from
their neighbors but also their own families. We
talked to bayakous who perform this work publicly
and also with a number who lie to their acquaintances
or family members, for example, claiming
that they work in other locations as night watchmen.
In these cases, they live in other regions of the
city from those were they carry out their work.
Most of the bayakous with whom we spoke
were born outside of Port-au-Prince (several from
the southern region of the country) and had arrived
in the capital as children or young adults.
Some had been restavek or kokorat, and various
were orphans since an early age. Despite the stigmatization
and the dramatic personal histories, it
should be noted that these professionals – especially
those who work regularly – are privileged,
at least relatively speaking: they manage to earn
money on a daily basis, or almost, which is no trivial
matter in a world of extreme poverty such as
this. On the other hand, there is an elaborate ethics
26 There are also commercial latrines built during the
reform work recently undertaken in the Croix de Bossales
market. These charge double (10 gourdes) and are
mainly used by the public to rest and enjoy the refreshing
atmosphere of the shining tiles.
27 On the localization of latrines, defecatory practices
and values associated with shame in rural areas, see
Huges Foucault and Nelson Sylvestre, “’Etude des pratiques
de défécation dans le Nord-Ouest,” Faculty of
Ethnology, Université d’Etat d’Haïti, 2009.
GARBAGE | 49