One thing I definitely noticed was that here in Nicaragua the approach that CARE takes is a very basic introduction to hygiene, sanitation and clean water. For example, I met two girls from Matagalpa that work with CARE. They both attend university there, studying agricultural/forestation engineering. They are in their last year (5th year) and part of their requirements (at least to my understanding) is completing some type of internship. They currently are involved in a CARE hygiene project where they visit homes to check and ensure the homes are meeting hygiene “standards”. I put the last word in quotation marks because CARE has no actual control over these homes. It’s more of a helpful suggestion/education that CARE teaches. The jovenes also told me that they are installing some kind of faucet or a similar device, but most of their energy is being spent on teaching (or reinforcing) people how to wash their hands, how to bathe and why it’s important to drink clean water. These lessons are almost instinct or common knowledge in the states. There are no non-profits (that I am currently aware of) that go around the country and teach adults and children how to wash their hands. In the states, it’s more about new technologies used to purify water, or more on new products to help you stay clean. In the states, the basics of hygiene and safe water are usually common knowledge. I don’t think one approach is necessarily bad; I just that that a country’s level of development calls for a different approach. One advantage I see with teaching and reinforcing the basics is that once people start applying these lessons to their daily lives without having to be reminded, they can move on and start learning about another important and necessary topic, for example nutrition. The disadvantage I see appears when we, as a community or country, develop so much that we start learning about new, unnecessary technologies or products to aid us in our efforts to keep good hygiene or further purify our water. This is when we face a problem; when communities and countries continue to buy and buy and buy. I don’t have a solution for this problem, I just see this as a huge disadvantage with a variety of repercussions for developed countries such as the United States. What’s going to happen when developing countries catch up to our wasteful ways?

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