Mountain House and Health

Two weeks ago was the first time I had to go to the clinic since I've arrived here. Theresa hasn't been to the clinic yet this year. She and I are the exceptions. Between Theresa and I there's been 1 trip to the clinic this year (mine). Everyone else has gone multiple times.We don't know why this is the case. It probably has to do with the environments we grew up in. Maybe T and I ate lots of dirt as kids?

Illness isn't uncommon here, it's practically expected. The most common sicknesses are parasites, intestinal infections, salmonella, and giardia. The common thread – they're all digestive track issues. The food and water here is hard on our digestive tracks. As I mentioned before, we peel anything that can be peeled (e.g. tomatoes). Things that can't be peeled, like bell peppers and spinach, we soak in bleach water before eating. It's a given that we don't drink tap water. We either purify it with micropur tablets or boil it. Inside the house we work hard to protect ourselves.

But we don't always eat at home. Every weekday we eat lunch in the comedor, where we share plates and bowls with the kids. One of our theories for the spread of some of the sickness we've seen is that the bowls/spoons aren't properly washed and dried (wet bowls could carry giardia water into the food) after the kids use them. On Thursdays we eat at whichever house is hosting the mass.* Sometimes on the weekends we eat out. Tourist restaurants are generally a safe bet, but they're also expensive. There's lots of places we eat where we don't see how the food is treated before it reaches the table.

I think there's another factor at play: altitude. The biggest thing I learned from the American doctors who visited in May (LINK) was that the human body works harder every second to stay alive and well at high altitudes. There's less oxygen in each breath, so the body has to make do with less. I suspect that our bodies aren't as well equipped to fight the illnesses we face as they would be if we were living at sea level. That's not to say that we'd all be completely healthy – the JVs in Nicaragua have had more than their fair share of parasites LINK - but I suspect it plays a roll.

It also doesn't escape my notice that I got sick at a time when I wasn't as disciplined about exercising. I'd been rushing to finish the trimester properly and fallen out of my exercise routine. Again, I'm not saying that spending twenty minutes working out on Thursday morning would have protected me from the infection I felt the next day, but I think it was a factor.

Here's the frustrating thing about health here: there's not much we can change. We've switched from bar soap to liquid soap, and are even splurging on liquid dish soap PIC OF PERUVIAN SOAP. We've started using the treated water when we boil water for tea (double security). But that's about all we can change. Obviously I can get back on the wagon of exercising too. It's hard to know how to handle health properly.

For closing thoughts:

1. Health is a serious and recurring issue for a number of people in the Mountain House – primarily digestive tract health. Therefore it is a community concern.
2. We've made any changes to our lifestyle that we can think of, but there's not much we can do.
3. It's not clear why some people experience regular health problems and others don't.
4. I'm not too concerned about my own health. I've been mostly healthy since I arrived. I would have been shocked to make it through 2 years here without going to the clinic once or twice. To the folks at home: don't worry about me.

 *Notice I got sick on a Thursday night/Friday morning. It's possible the food we ate at mass the night before wasn't properly cleaned. Also the dessert, chocolate mousse, had raw egg in it.