Ericaine’s story is about a mother’s
love, a wife’s resilience and a woman’s determination to make life better – not
just for her family, but for everyone in the displacement camp they call home, writes Toilet Twinning CEO Lorraine
Kingsley.
I met Ericaine in the middle of a displacement camp in Central African
Republic. It’s considered one of the worst countries in the world to live – and
Ericaine is one of CAR’s most vulnerable people.
It was stifling inside the large, wooden-framed tent that housed Ericaine’s
family – and seven other families besides. Her tarpaulin-walled compartment housed
a bed of sticks held together with string, with a flimsy rattan mat on top. It
didn’t look comfortable enough to sleep on for one night – let alone three years
and counting.
Ericaine (left) is now keeping her community safe and healthy |
Above the bed, clothes hung from lines of string hung between nails in
the wooden struts: a woman’s skirt, a top and a shirt, and a few items of children’s
clothing so dishevelled they looked more like cleaning rags.
Next to the bed sat a tiny cabin-sized suitcase, and a few pots and
pans. On the bed lay a small pile of dog-eared textbooks and exercise books.
Before Ericaine came to this camp, she told me, she had a
market stall selling groundnuts, cassava and palm oil. She had her own home,
enough money to feed her children and money for clothes. Her husband works away
on a diamond quarry.
Life in a displacement camp in CAR is tough |
Ericaine called to her four children, and started running. She
carried her two-year-old daughter on her back: her teenage daughter Sandra carried
her younger brother and Ericaine’s other son ran alongside them.
A man was gunned down in the street ahead of them. A woman told them
she’d seen armed militia nearby and she pointed to where it was safe for them
to go.
Ericaine and her children ran to the bush and sheltered for two
nights. She stayed awake, guarding her children. On the third day, she felt
brave enough to make her way to a nearby church, where she took refuge with
about 100 other families. A large tarpaulin shelter was set up for them in the
church compound – and that was their home for the next eight months until a UN
camp was established next-door.
Ericaine was four weeks’ pregnant when she arrived at the church. Over
the next eight months, they often heard gunfire and often hid in the bush for days
at a time.
It was while they were cowering in the bush one day that Ericaine went
into labour. She sent Sandra on ahead, with her siblings. She had her baby
there in the bush, before help came.
A couple of women carried Ericaine back to the church, where staff
looked after her, gave her sheets and clothes and medicine.
Soon after Ericaine’s baby girl, Pricille, was born, the UN camp was
set up. Conditions had been terrible in the church compound: they were just as
bad in the camp.
A teenager doggedly continues her education, despite everything |
Without proper latrines, children went to the toilet anywhere and everywhere.
The smell was awful: so were the rats and flies. Women would go to toilet in
the bush – where they feared being attacked.
Ericaine and her cleaning kit |
Ericaine volunteered immediately. ‘I wanted to make the camp a
healthier place – not just for my family – but for the whole community,’ she
says.
Ericaine and the cleaning team asked for padlocks, so they could stop
children making a mess of the toilets and damaging the temporary wooden-framed
structures. Mothers took responsibility for holding the keys, so the toilets
would stay as clean as possible.
Gradually, conditions have improved and people are healthier. Ericaine
and her team are proud they’ve been able to play a part in protecting their
community.
‘We saw a big reduction in sickness and diarrhoea,’ says Ericaine.
‘Here, we live on top of each other, so everyone can hear you when you’re
sick. We’d often look after children if a mother was ill.
‘Things are so much better now. I can’t thank you enough for giving us
back our health.’
Ericaine’s nation
is still volatile: intense violence flares up without warning. But, here at
least, in Ericaine’s corner of ‘the unhappiest country in the world’*, she’s
able to keep her family safe, from disease at least.
*UN poll, March
2017