Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Beautiful African sunset! The sun rises around 6:30AM and sets around 6:30PM. The stars at night are amazing, you can even see the Milky Way :) Tonight we are having a campfire; there are two large cement fire pits on the camp. We have to ask the azaris (guards) in the morning if we can have a fire that night so they can collect the wood for us - there are differnt species around here that release toxins when burned so you have to know what you're doing!
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I'm astounded that the locals are not more diligent about protecting their drinking water. Have you found evidence of high instances of disease or birth defects that may be attributed to the contamination? I'm also surprised that no one has ever taught them how to - at the very least - build outhouses.
ReplyDeleteThere are some efforts towards these issues - the public health department is working to provide outhouses and instruct people on proper waste disposal. They also educate on clean water and provide water treatment options. The problem is that a lot of people are not acceptable to these changes. They think that they have been drinking this water all of their life and using the bush as a toilet as long as they can remember so why change now? There are also many superstitions for causes of disease and illness - for example many think that having diarrhea as a child is just part of growing up, they don't associate it with food or water contamination. As far as linking disease rates with contamination, no one has ever studied this particular area but that is something we will be looking at next week when we start our survey. I'll keep you posted on the results!
ReplyDelete-Katlin