# How to prevent Shigella epidemics
**\[Work in progress - 1st version produced by Fire - June 2026\]**
**1. How to prevent the spreading of germs, illnesses and infections**
These rules are many, are difficult, and they are not at all fun. As fairies we want to relax, and stop worrying for the duration of a gathering. But sadly the past years have taught us how dangerous infections can be in a gathering. It is not easy to change the way we collectively cook, handle food and touch each other, but the efforts are worth it, and hopefully in the future all these hygiene gestures become very usual and can be very efficient without requiring the effort they are still requiring now as we learn.
a. Kitchen rules
Noone enters the kitchen during cooking, except members of the kitchen team.
Wash your hands everytime you enter the kitchen, even if you went out for only 5 seconds
No nudity in the kitchen.
The fly panels on windows prevent flies from entering the kitchens. Keep them on, even if you don’t find them pretty. Flies carry germs and bacterias.
Do not sit on tables
Cooked meals are safer (more details to add here from FOLLE)
If you are serving raw food, make sure it has been properly washed with clean water, prepared by fairies with clean hands, cut with clean knives on clean cutting boards.
b. breakfast barn rules
Make sure your hands are clean before you touch any food or cutlery
Close all food boxes, immediately after using.
Never share a knife or spoon that you used to take some jam/cheese/whatever. Use it, then put it in the dirty
c. Toilets
to be completed
d. Some little things can allow an infection to spread from one fairy to the whole gathering :
Setting the table, bringing plates for everyone is helpful and generous, but if done with unclean hands can contaminate the whole gathering.
We use servers for every meal. It takes only one impatient fairy touching the serving spoon can contaminate the whole pot and thus the whole gathering.
Door handles are touched by everyone. Touching a door handle is like touching dozens of fairies at the same time. This is why whenever you exit the kitchen and enter again, even if it seems like nothing, you have to wash your hands again.
Washing your hands, and then closing the tap which you opened with your dirty hands. Ways around this problem : tap activated by foot pedals have been installed around the sanctuary. Or you can wash the tap at the same time as your hands. Or you can close it using a cloth or paper towel. Or…
Drying your hands on a cloth after washing them can make your hands just as dirty as they were before washing. Dry your hands with either a clean cloth or paper towels, or even better : just shake them fast to let them air dry.
e. Collective responsibility
- Deities/Roles are very useful to make sure a collective concern is not overlooked. In the past, there has been such deities as :
— Dragonfly : the dragonfly makes sure the safety rules are followed during the gathering, and reminds fairies of good behaviour related to hygiene during the practical circles.
— Head Nurse : the head nurse fairy is a nurse, a doctor, or an untrained fairy who wants to take on the responsibility of tracking signs of infections, making sure ill fairies are taken care of, and also making sure that infections do not spread.
- Having a functioning immune system is a privilege. Your immune system protects you, and noone else. In a gathering, hygiene is a collective effort, and all gestures done to prevent the spreading of germs are an act of collective care. Be mindful when you’re in a gathering :
— You can be a carrier of dangerous germs even if you have no symptoms,
— Some germs are not dangerous to you, but could be deadly to others,
f. Illnesses, shame, fear, and communication
« This gathering is just starting, and it’s so fun and magical, promising many loving moments. I just don’t have the heart to ruin it with a bad news. I won’t tell anyone I have diarrhea. »
If you are ill, don’t keep it to yourself. Diarrhea and a slight fever may not be much to you, but if this information is not shared, it could allow the infection to spread.
I you are ill, let other fairies know, and refrain from entering the kitchen and breakfast barn. Ask other fairies to bring you plates, cutlery, food, to make breakfast for you.