Six People, Two Rooms and a Standpipe 200 Metres Away
The Shikongo household lives in a two-room house with a corrugated-iron roof in a rural village. There are six people: the mother, a shop assistant who works from 07:00 to 17:00 six days a week; the father, on a mine contract who comes home every three months; a grandmother of 70 with arthritis in her hands and knees; and three children aged 12, 8 and 3. There is no electricity and no tap in the yard; water comes from a communal standpipe 200 m away and the family owns two 20-litre buckets. Cooking is done on a paraffin stove standing on the floor. The 12-year-old fetches water and minds the 3-year-old after school. Washing is done by hand in a tub on Sunday, and the grandmother cooks the evening meal. Last month the 3-year-old pulled a pot of hot porridge off the stove and was treated at the clinic for a burn.
1. Identify the main problems in this household and apply work simplification principles to propose a reorganised weekly routine, with reasons for each change.
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Problems to name first: the household's work is concentrated into one day (Sunday washing) and onto two people (the grandmother and the 12-year-old); heavy water is carried 200 m by a child; the grandmother stands to cook on a floor-level stove with painful joints; and the 3-year-old is at risk while cooking happens.
Apply work simplification:
- Eliminate and combine. Soak heavily soiled clothes overnight so the actual washing takes less rubbing. Cook porridge or beans in a large batch twice a week rather than daily, and reheat portions - one fire, one pot, less standing.
- Rearrange the sequence and spread the peak. Move washing from Sunday to Saturday morning, when the 12-year-old is home to help and the mother is not at work. Do small washes on Wednesday for the children's school clothes rather than one exhausting pile.
- Improve the layout. Store water in a lidded 100–200 litre drum with a tap just outside the door, filled by two trips with the buckets instead of six. A drum near the kitchen cuts carrying to a few steps.
- Use better equipment and better working heights. A stove platform built of bricks or blocks at about hip height, a small table, a long-handled mop and a stool for the grandmother remove the bending and squatting that her arthritis makes painful.
- Share the work fairly. The 8-year-old can fold washing and sweep; the mother can cook in the evening and leave the midday meal ready on workdays; the father can do heavy tasks (filling the drum, buying paraffin) when he is home.
The principle is the same throughout: use less human energy for the same result, and give the hardest tasks to the people and times best able to carry them.
2. Redesign the cooking and water arrangements to make them safer, especially for the 3-year-old.
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Cooking:
- Raise the paraffin stove on a stable brick or concrete platform about 60–70 cm high. A pot lifted off a high surface is far less likely to be pulled over, and the grandmother no longer cooks at floor level.
- Turn pot handles inward, away from the edge, and use the back of the stove for the pot in use.
- Keep the 3-year-old occupied at a small table with a task or within arm's reach of the 8-year-old during the last busy half hour before the meal; a child is most at risk when everyone is rushing.
- Store paraffin in a clearly labelled, closed container, away from the stove and out of a child's reach, and never refill a stove that is still burning - paraffin explosions are a common cause of severe burns in rural homes.
- Keep a bucket of water and a clean cloth near the cooking area, and know the first-aid rule: cool a burn with clean running water for at least 20 minutes, do not put butter, oil or toothpaste on it, and cover loosely.
Water and hygiene:
- A lidded drum with a tap reduces the number of trips and keeps stored water clean; a lid stops dust, insects and children's hands going in. Use a long-handled dipper rather than a cup, so hands never enter the drinking water.
- Separate containers for drinking water and washing water, both labelled.
- A simple handwashing point - a hanging container with a tap and a bar of soap - beside the cooking and latrine areas.
The changes cost little and remove the two hazards that caused the burn: height and crowding.