National Hand-Washing Competitions Needed
- Category: Peering Eye
- Date 23-01-2005
- 400 views
Poverty, ignorance, and disease are known to be the compelling characteristics of the countries in the third world, including our own. For the sake of politeness, a consoling term has been adopted to say ours is the developing world.
Wherefore death is dangling its bait and constantly we are in a hurry to swallow to it, hook, line and sinker, with life expectancy at about forty years of age. Yet how long shall we contend with practices that improve terrifically our speed towards the grave?
Hands are probably the most dangerous part of the human body. We are always using them to commit both small and big crimes – shooting a killer gun, pick-pocketing, slapping a child, grabbing property, placing poison on our lips, fondling prostitutes, forging documents, raising hands to give false testimonies and covering up every mess.
We are deliberately hurting someone but may at times end up hurting ourselves by the way we deploy our hands to serve us. Health workers say that this is usually through failure to wash our hands regularly and properly. I have had the privilege to observe and contemplate the dangers of unhygienic utilisation of hands, and I do hereby prophesy that it will soon emerge as a leading killer of humans in the developing world.
It is funny how we clean our hands before taking our meals. The biggest majority of people who eat from public places generally take very little, if any, precautions to wash their hands.
Many buy roadside roasted foods such as maize and nyamachoma, as they do in several open restaurants and they start gnawing into them without washing their hands. The individual who roasts the maize or meat keeps touching and turning them on the fire without due care for the hygiene of the hands and the health hazards it might visit on their customers.
Many of us do not understand the rationale behind hand washing practices, let alone the manner of doing so. There are several unknown requirements such as: How regularly should a person wash their hands? How thorough should one be when washing hands? When should a person use soap and when should one not? After what activity must someone wash their hands? How clean or dirty should the water be or not be?
These questions may seem quite outlandish, but they are necessary to ponder. Peering Eye has noted that whereas many people can assume to know the answers, they do not properly observe the practice and hand washing has been reduced to a mere ceremony rather than a well understood lifesaving habit.
Some people do not wash their hands after using the toilet, no matter what next they are going to touch – even food. Whoever appears enlightened and cares to wash their hands before having meals does so neither in the right way nor with the right tools. The water may be as dirty as hell and soap is remembered and used after, not before, having the meal.
A very smartly dressed lady or gentleman might simply extend his hand and allow a few drops of water on the tips of the fingers, while keeping a cigarette in another hand. Someone might even ask for a mere tissue (serviette) to “clean” the hands with before touching the food. This simply improves our disease level and hastens us towards the tomb.
Every person carries innumerable germs in their hands, fingers and fingernails. We use our hands to scratch ourselves and to remove all unpleasant things on our bodies and surroundings. Dirty hands are blamed for spreading all tribes of eye infections, skin diseases as well as diarrhoea, cholera and etcetera.
Considering that many of us love our earthly lives dearly, why not advocate for a national hand-washing campaign, to educate ourselves on the need for adequate methods of washing hands and the dangers of not washing them. The winners shall be rewarded with a safer, longer life, while the losers shall be charged with attempted suicide and sentenced to self-destruction.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citizen