Traders in a market at Pepeh Wharf in Tombo, a ‘village’ in the Western Rural District have on Thursday January 11, 2021, said that there is no toilet in the market which has necessitated open air defecation along the seashore in the wharf.
According to Adama Jalloh, the Deputy Chairlady in the market, for over decades now the market has no market. He added that traders and regulars at the market usually defecate in an open air at the wharf. She disclosed, “What we usually excrete at the sea is what again we eat, because fish usually feed on the excreta and that fish would be eaten by us again when they get caught. We usually feel ashamed when we tell regulars who are caught up by an urgent need to attend natures call to go to the rocks on the shore to ease themselves.”
She added that they pay market dues regularly to the Western Area Rural District Council but no help has been rendered to them in the Tombo. He also complained that there is not adequate market structure and the space available for traders to display their wares is limited. She explained that as a result of the size of the market, they chose to be trading in the street where they usually encounter a lot of embarrassment from the authorities and sometimes vehicles who run into their goods destroying them.
Marie Kanu, a regular, who had undergone the experience of being in the need to attend to an urgent call of nature amidst the situation of lack of a toilet at the market, said that there was no other option than to defecate at the seashore. “Even though, I was exposed to the people at the wharf, but it better to do so than to do it in my clothes,” she stressed.
“Our houses are far from the market and there is no toilet facility here, going home to ease ourselves would be very difficult when nature comes. We are appealing to the government to help the market with a toilet facility,” she concluded.
By Ibrahim S.Bangura
27/01/2021. ISSUE NO: 7989