Yesterday, October 15th, was "International Hand Washing Day", which by the way is not an easy concept to convey to people who are not familiar with attributing days to the celebration of random healthful activities, especially in a second language. Nonetheless, after reading about the significance of hand washing (regular/proper hand washing can prevent as many as 50% of deaths caused by diarrhea among children, and a quarter of all respiratory illness among children, as well as many skin and eye infections), I decided to use the day as a personal motivator to get out and do some grassroots health training. Luckily for me, "Hand Washing Day" fell on a Thursday this year, which happens to be souq day. And what better place than a popular souq attracting many men, children, and some women from all over the area to disseminate healthy hand washing tips? You might be thinking, "But isn't it awkward to go up to a bunch of strangers and try to teach grown men how to wash their hands"? The answer, is "Yes. Extremely awkward". That is why I took advantage of a traditional cultural practice to help me break the ice. If you have ever been a guest in a Moroccan household and eaten a meal, or even at Moroccan restaurants in America, you have probably seen what we call "lmaxsl". This is basically a kettle of water and a basin to catch the water in. As a guest, you are presented with the "lmaxsl" and somebody will offer to pour water from the kettle into the basin so that you can wash your hands. This portable hand washing device, which Moroccans are very comfortable with, seemed like a great way to open dialogue. My idea was to walk around souq with the "lmaxsl" and offer to wash peoples hands in hopes that they would ask me what I was doing. I also made some fliers with all the necessary hand washing information in transliterated TashlHite as well as in Arabic, in case people wanted a reminder later, or in case my language was failing me.
Amber and I woke up a bit earlier than usual Thursday morning, and practiced telling each other how and when to wash our hands in TashlHite, over breakfast of barley couscous, coffee, and tea. Then we gathered our things, wrote down a quick shopping list, and headed out the door. Souq was already bustling when we came over the hill into the center of town. Knowing that the best fruits and vegetables go fast, we did our souq shopping first thing. Just in from the front gate and to the right, I visited my spice guy. He has a beautiful array of colorful spices, beans, pastas, and grains. This day I just asked for 2dhs worth of cinnamon, and a bar of soap to offer to people washing their hands. Then I headed all the way back to the far right corner of the market where I found my veggie seller, busy as usual. I bagged up all the fruit and veggies I thought I would need for the week and handed them to him to weigh. Some quick stops at the wholesale onion pile, an apple dealer, and a friendly banana salesman, and then it was time to buy the "lmaxsl". We found an appropriate size an price at our neighbors shop, paid the man, and we were off to teach health. We walked across the street to the "sbitar" (rural hospital), and filled up the kettle with water. In a moment of clarity, Amber remembered that we did not have a drying towel. As she prepared in the sbitar, I ran back outside and bought a hand-towel. When I returned, everything was ready except for our nerves. Up until that moment, the idea had seemed so exciting and fun; but as we walked out of the sbitar and down the busy street, I felt more than a little nervous that things wouldn't go as I had hoped. We both looked around anxiously for friendly faces, but most people were just busy doing there shopping. In fact we made it all the way to the back of the souq without washing a single hand or talking to anybody. In the back of the souq, there were some small cafes. Knowing how important hand washing is before eating, I asked the owner if we could hang out around the cafe and offer to wash people's hands, to which he agreed. This was a cafe full of aging men much more concerned with their tea and their socializing than with what we had to say, so we took it in stride when we were awkwardly turned away by the first few people we asked. Perhaps out of pity, of just in the spirit of the quirkiness of the moment, eventually some men did agree to wash their hands. And to my surprise, they even asked us the right questions so that we could have a fairly natural discussion about hand washing. After the discussion, we gave them some fliers in Arabic. When the other men in the small cafe saw this, many of them wanted to read the flier, so that soon many of the men were sitting around reading the fliers and discussing them among themselves. Having affected all the people we could at the cafe, we decided to move on. Outside, not far from the cafe, there were a few kids looking at us curiously. We convinced them to wash their hands, and then gave then the fliers and told them what the fliers said. When two of the boys still seemed interested, we asked them if they would be interested in helping, to which they said yes. We went over the information with them one more time and then gave them a handful of fliers to pass out and discuss. Another lull in participation followed, but emboldened by some success, we carried on. Anyone who saw the "lmaxsl" and gave us a funny look, we would ask if they wanted us to wash their hands. Children proved to be more curious and therefore more participatory. At one point, near the entrance of the souq, we ran into our imam friend. We greeted each other and he asked us what we were doing. We explained it to him, and asked if he would like to wash his hands, which he reluctantly did. Somehow, this became the tipping point for a mass of interest. Soon we had a line of people waiting to get their hands washed, and we were passing out fliers and talking about hand washing as fast as we could. Eventually, the crowd of people got so thick that people were grabbing for fliers without even being able to see what they were. It was a feeding frenzy until we were out of fliers. Luckily we still had the original, so we went and made another 80 copies and refilled the kettle. When we returned, we had figured out the system, so once again near the souq entrance we quickly amassed a circle of curious people wanting to get their hands washed and hear what we were talking about. All in all we washed probably 30 peoples hands, and gave away over 200 fliers, although probably only about 150 should actually be counted. In addition, we thoroughly trained two kids who turned around and taught others. In fact, I noticed this effect happening a lot among the grown men as well. When the big groups would form around me, I would talk to one man about the importance of hand washing, and then hear him explaining it to other people around the group. So as Amber and I walked back home in the afternoon with bags full of our vegetables, some soap, and a well used "Lmaxsl", it was with a sense of accomplishment that I have rarely felt since coming to Morocco. Don't forget to wash your hands!
