Walk around any major Kenyan town, and you won’t fail to notice the large writings on walls, “usikojoe hapa.”
Being a man, such posts offend me because or one reason or another, it’s pretty obvious that it’s (more often than not) directed at us. But then I ask myself a question. Why do they have to write on walls? Why do they have to warn people against dampening those walls?
The answer is pretty clear. Seeing a man rush the roadside to relieve his bladder is a common show. Not that he is too pressed to wait till he can use one of those city council lavatories, but the moment he gets the urge to pee, the roadside automatically becomes a urinal.
Now to the point. Are we really to blame for being so uncouth?
Not really. why?
Okay. Tell me, what happens when you go upcountry, and your 2 year old brother starts tagging at your mums dress shouting how bad he wants to pee? Doesn’t your mother show him some secluded place (probably along that fence behind the house) and ask that young fella to do his thing there,even if the privy is closer than the cowshed.
After that, you expect such a kid to be well toilet trained? I mean, toilet training is not all about getting rid of metabolic waste, but also doing it in the right place.
A kid is said to have undergone successful toilet training if he can do it at the right place in the right way (*sigh* I sound like my G&D lecturer already)
Now, if you teach a kid that peeing behind the house is okay, he won’t have qualms doing it on the roadside, well, as long as he is not doing it in the presence of others.
In a nutshell, parents have a very huge role to play if at all we intend to eliminate that ammonia smell from our streets. Not that it’s the sole reason, but it is one of the major ones.