Ebola in the U.S.: MINOR PROBLEM

If you had to choose, which would you rather have: access to the Internet? Or access to a toilet (i.e. indoor plumbing)?

Yesterday the Washington Post published an article stating that 4.4 billion people around the world still don’t have Internet.  The thing about living abroad is that your perspective changes, without you putting in any effort at all. Upon reading that headline I immediately thought to myself: So what?! Several billion people don’t have access to toilets!  If I had to choose one, I would opt for sanitation and hygiene over a virtual update of Kimye’s most recent scandals any day.

I admit the Internet is useful.  I no longer own a bound dictionary because I can use dictionary.com.  When I was learning to drive a manual on the left side of the road, I watched youtube videos for practice. And naturally, as a professor, I use the Internet every day before I teach to see if there are any current events related to my class which I should discuss with my students.  Yes, the Internet is great.  But I don’t think the fact that two-thirds of the world population is sans Internet is all that unfortunate.  According to The World Bank, only 24% of Sub-Saharan Africa has electricity.  You can’t have Internet without at least some access to electricity.  But Obama’s Power Africa initiative is a foolish endeavor (read: DISASTER) which I will save to address a different day.

World Toilet Day is celebrated annually on November 19^th aimed at bringing attention to the need for behavior change and policy implementation “to end open-air defecation.”  Currently, more than 2.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to toilets.  This means they have to relieve themselves in the open.  For those living in rural areas, individuals can try to find somewhere secluded, but this is a security risk.  If you remember that rash of rapes and murders in India recently, many of those occurred because girls had no access to latrines, forcing them to go out into fields to relieve themselves, and there they were easy prey for violent attacks. However, many of these people without access to toilet facilities don’t live strictly in rural areas; many live in incredibly crowded slums in the inner-cities.

When I was in Sierra Leone a few years ago I visited Kroo Bay, one of the largest slums in Freetown, the nation’s capital.  In one Kroo Bay neighborhood 15,000 people live in very cramped quarters with access to four, FOUR (4!) toilets.  Also, it should be noted these are long drops, not toilets with running water.  If you are unfamiliar with a long drop please read my previous post here.  If you would like to see some photos of the Kroo Bay neighborhood, check out this BBC article (be sure to click through the pictures).

The lack of toilets, running water and sanitation is why Africa has an Ebola problem.  When I was in Kroo Bay there was an outbreak of cholera, leprosy was rampant, and the life expectancy was, and still is, 35 years.  Everyone is concerned about Ebola coming to America.  The simple truth is, this should not be a problem here and it should be halted immediately without significant concern.

As Americans we are fortunate.  We have access to running water, thus we can use flush toilets and wash our hands.  We wear shoes, therefore we don’t have to worry about walking around barefoot and potentially stepping in someone’s bodily fluids and contracting a disease.  And for the most part, we live in reasonable accommodations, not cramped living quarters where we are subject to others’ illnesses due to close proximity and the inability to quarantine ourselves (or others) when we are sick.

So, back to the original question: Would you rather have access to the Internet or to a toilet?  I know this may be a tough one for some of you, but try to consider the facts I mentioned above.

Here is a picture I took when I was in Kroo Bay, Sierra Leone.  On the left side you can see a child wearing a blue and white shirt squatting and going to the “toilet.”  Also on the left you can see a woman standing up (there is a man in jeans and a white and gray shirt behind her) who is doing laundry in this creek.  And then if you look on the right side, there is a boy with a bag next to a set of stairs.  Next to that boy you can see the back end of a pig (black and white, or pink? legs and tail):

Necessity is the Mother of All Invention: The Neighborhood Kids Find Toys (Part 2)

About a week or so ago I wrote about the kids in my neighborhood with whom I was engaged in a slight power struggle. Since the last episode, the kids have managed to find other ways of entertaining themselves without placing my property (or my sanity) in harm’s way. But after confiscating their former play toy (a metal pole which they ripped off the side of my house) I thought I would be typecast into the role of evil villain and instill fear in their hearts every time I emerged from my secret lair. This reputation seemed to last… about five minutes. I guess that’s the thing about kids, they have short memories and don’t really hold grudges.

Yesterday on my way home from work as I was entering my housing complex a friend was on her way out. She and I stopped and chatted in the middle of the parking lot briefly. As we were talking we could hear the neighborhood kids shouting and running around. Then it became quiet, for a second, then there was a lot of commotion, followed by more shouting and repetitive banging. We turned around to find the kids had pulled the garbage cans out of the storage areas and into the parking lot. Apparently they had found sticks and were using them to play the drums on the sides of the cans. That certainly explains why our garbage cans are in such poor shape.

Brenda and I just shook our heads and continued our conversation. The next thing we knew the kids were beside us, pointing sticks in our faces with fish heads perched on top:

I have no idea what type of fish these were, but as you can see they have some giant teeth. And, the kids are pretty proud of their teeth too:

As the Greek Philosopher Plato said, “necessity is the mother of all invention.” I have always understood that statement, but I’ve never seen it quite so prevalent as it is here. The kids don’t have toys, so they play with the trash. We don’t have tape, so we use gum to hang things on the walls. The grocery store where I shop has four cash registers, but only one credit card machine. Each time a customer wants to use a credit card the cashiers and patrons work together to pass the machine from one check-out stand to the next. Apparently, the grocery store only has one pen as well, so the same ritual is used so that the receipt can be signed. My big house is currently in the midst of a clothesline construction project; he can’t hang his clothes outside to dry as the goats try to eat them. Third World problems, I know. But sometimes it makes me a little sad that a continent with so many natural resources has to exist in such a frugal state, particularly when I see kids playing with trash.

No electricity at home

I am sitting here in my office because there’s no electricity in my house.  Yes, I did pay the power bill, but as I’ve mentioned before, we have rolling blackouts, water rationing, and a host of other “Third World” problems you don’t typically think about.  Since all the blog posts I would normally write now have pictures associated with them and I didn’t bring my camera with me to download those pictures, I am forced to consider another alternative for today’s post.

I always get random questions from people asking me about daily life: What do you eat?  Or what do you miss? Or, are there working toilets in the bathrooms or is it just a hole in the ground?  I think I will save all of those for another day, but today I am going to share with you some pictures I took over the last six weeks that I haven’t posted previously.

Here in Botswana we have medical services.  So don’t worry Mom!  Here is an ambulance:

We also have bouncy castles, and clowns:

We have very scary thorn bushes which are especially scary when you are riding your bike.  I’ve had a couple of close calls, but thankfully I’ve hadn’t had to test out the ambulance… yet:

We have dinner, err, I mean, pets.  This is Bob.  He is a neighbor’s pet, but chances are he will be dinner sometime in the near future.  If I have the pleasure of cooking Bob I will let you know:

And we have kids.  I actually do NOT know these children.  But I find that any time I take out my camera kids come running up to me and asking me to take their picture.  They don’t want a picture WITH me like when I was in China, they just want me to take their picture.  So, I guess in that case we have aspiring celebrities practicing for the future paparazzi that will follow them around:

Third World Problems: Power Outages and Water Rationing

Shortly before I left the U.S. I spoke to a friend who informed me he was “so upset” because his key fob wasn’t working.  Instead of being able to push the button to unlock the door to his car he now had to go through the hassle of putting the key in the door, turning it and then opening the door.  “How terrible! That’s heartbreaking!  How DO YOU make it through the day?”  His response? “Don’t make fun of me, this is serious.”  “Yes, that’s very serious, kind of like famine.” I know I am just as guilty of magnifying my first world problems from time to time, but nothing brings that into perspective as clearly as having real, third world problems.

I do have to say that Botswana is the least Third World country I’ve ever visited.  It has a lot of infrastructure and luxuries which aren’t available in other third world countries.  But, it is still considered Third World.

The term Third World was first used during the Cold War.  First World countries included capitalist countries, such as the U.S. and other western countries that were part of NATO. The Communist Bloc: the USSR, China, Cuba, and their allies; made up the Second World.  Any countries which weren’t part of one of these two alliances were considered Third World.  Obviously, the Cold War is over, so the designation of First and Second World countries is no longer appropriate, but the term Third World is still used to describe “developing” or “least developed” countries as determined by the International Monetary Fund and the UN’s Human Development Index.

Though at first glance Botswana seems rather cosmopolitan and advanced, at least to me, there are times when it’s Third World status is glaringly evident.  In the past 24 hours I’ve experienced two major incidents which reminded me of this.  Last night while I was at dinner the electricity went out.  My dinner companions had already been served their food, but mine was still being prepared.  They continued to eat in the dark, while I waited as my lamb chops sat in the oven failing to cook.  Two hours later, when the lights were still out, I decided I would rather eat the kale chips I brought with me in my carry-on and call it a night.

Today I woke up to find there was no water in the house.  This did not come as a total shock as my neighbors had warned me to save some water the night prior due to water rationing.  We are in the midst of the dry season here in Botswana, so there are designated days each week when the water is shut off for various communities.  If you don’t save water beforehand you better hope your neighbors like you or else it’s bound to be a long, dry, thirsty day.  I never realized how much water I use on a daily basis until I was limited to the five containers I saved:

Water is precious here and the Batswana people know that (Batswana is the plural term for citizens from Botswana- that wasn’t a mispelling.  In case you were wondering Motswana is the singular). Pula is currency here.  It is named after the Setswana word for rain because rain is so scarce.  But pula also means blessing because rain is considered a blessing, and of course, having money is a blessing as well.

I expect by the time I leave Botswana some of these Third World challenges will be routine to me.  Hopefully this will also remind me there are a lot of people in the world who would love to have the inconvenience of my First World “problems” rather than the normal day-to-day goings-on of Third World life.