Memories of a childhood home with a septic system in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
By Hiwot Gebremariam
A couple of years ago during SepticSmart Week, my colleague Maureen Pepper (Tooke) shared her experience growing up with a septic system in New Jersey. Let me share mine from another side of the world.
I grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on a septic system that didn’t work well for many reasons. It was built in the lower part of a steep landscape, which means rainwater drained into it. We drove our car over it daily because our garage was next to it. At some point, we even built a livestock barn on top of it! The septic system was built on clay soil common in Addis Ababa, preventing the downward flow of wastewater, and in dry seasons the soil cracked.
The result was the system quickly overflowed (especially in rainy seasons), upsetting our neighbors. We had to bear the expense of having it pumped twice a year.
I’m not sure what type of septic system we had, but the sewage effluent was going straight into the Bulbula River, which looked so brown and dirty no one ever swam in it. Nevertheless, the river was used to irrigate a flower and vegetable farm about 300 meters away from my house, where I had spent a lot of time playing with friends and picking fruits to buy. Now I wonder if the two diagnoses of giardia and one for typhus I had were caused by it.
I never made these connections at the time; that happened only when I learned about septic systems while serving as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) research participant at EPA. Almost everything in EPA’s SepticSmart brochure would have been handy for my family back then — except the fact that we didn’t have a garbage disposal to start with, which may have prevented us from pouring fat and solids into the sink.
This week is SepticSmart Week. I will remember my childhood home and how I had a great time growing up playing with what nature gave me. I’ll also remember how the environment and public health can be protected with the right type of information and practice no matter where we are in the world.
About the author: Hiwot Gebremariam is an ORISE Research Participant in EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three sons.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed here are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.
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