Compost toilets

Here in Pisco, PSF has been given a contract to built 10 compost toilets for a little village of 70 people called El Bosquee just outside of Pisco. There is no running water in this community, just two 10,000 litre tanks in the centre of town where locals use buckets and hoses to get water to their houses. Each week a tanker delivers fresh water to their drinking tank and the other tank i think is filled from an underground bore.
The sanitation is bad as currently there is one toilet (read hole in the ground with wooden foot planks to go number 2s) for number 1s people go in a bucket in their house then throw it on their rubbish pile.
The compost toilets are designed so that wees and water are mixed and drained into a flower bed and the poos go straight into the brick chambers. Each toilet has 2 chambers, after a year of using one chamber they switch to the other and the first chamber has a full year sealed to compost. At the end of the second year the first chamber is opened and the material is used on the fields as compost.
It is a really rewarding project and the community are super eager to be able to use their new toilets.
So far we have laid four concrete slabs, finished two brick chambers and started another two. Complete the plumbing on two toilets. Poured one suspended concrete floor and put in one wooden floor.
So needless to say I am learning heaps of new skills. Other bonuses are that I am having heaps of fun, the kids are super cute, we get great lunches, I have made great friends, avoided sun burn, heat stroke but not the sand flies.... Check out the photos and the PSF website http://piscosinfronteras.org/

First layer of the bricks - DONE

Kids are super cute, but really anoying when trying to lay bricks...

Liz, hard at work

LEVEL.... Yeah Pisco perfect

The first site - brick work complete

Liz and I in the back of the truck

Pouring a suspended concrete floor - it looks oh so good

Yeah, I actually do some work