donde haces la caca?

The difference in our lives and the lives of ecuadorians is glaring and steep. I think about it often, I felt it in Caymbe with my host family, I feel it on the bus, I feel it when we go out to eat, It follows us everywhere we go. Yesterday was certinaly the most profound example. We went to an indigienous village at the footsteps of Chimborazo (the top of this volcano is the point closet to the sun). We were fortunate to be invited inside the hut of a local family. There was smoke billowing out the door, so much so that I thought they were smoking meat or something. It turned out that the wood the woman was using to cook with inside her wood hut with thatched grass roof, was wet-hence the heavy smoke. It was a one room building with two beds inside with mattresses made of the same grass that was protecting them from the rain. That was it. Apparently it is sort of unsual for people that live like this to allow westerners to look inside their homes because they are embarassed of thier poverty, but this family let us in, spoke to us and let us snap a few shots. I asked the litte girl where their bathroom was, she looked confused. So I asked where she went pee, she shook her head. Going for the all out assault on cultural sensitivity I asked here where she made caca, she declared that she did not. I later found out that they just go around the house, or up the hill above the house. I thought this sounded like it would make a good place for dry latrine project, but i was then informed that usually people would not make the adjustment.
This made me think, where is the line between perserving culture and improving quality of life? Does the idea of creating a more sanitary way for a family to deficate (not upstream from thier home and water) cross that line? Is shitting outside a fundamental aspect of thier culture? I think in this case it would probably be safe to help them build some toilets, but this question is not always so clear.
So much of what looks strange to us, is a product of our culurual filters, and it is going to take a long while for these to be penetrated enough for lost of us to make adequate decisions about what kinds of work to do. These differences in cultural norms also highlight the differences in opportunities. Opportunities that define our position of privledge just by virtue of being born in a different country.