On Tuesday, September 4th 2007 I lived through my first hurricane. It came bursting onto the coast of Nicaragua with a category 5 rating. It took out whole villages and caused gusts of wind up to 180 miles per hour. Due to the trajectory of it we were, as Peace Corps volunteers, told to group together depending on our location. The city in which I live is in fact the meeting point, so I was to stay in a hotel until further notice. It is a bit awkward telling your native friends and neighbors that you are being evacuated due to the danger and good luck to them. I packed belongings with the possibility, if things got really bad, everything left in my house would be ruined. Basically that consisted of my I-Pod, Camera, Lap Top and Passport. I rushed to the hotel, as the skies could not look less threatening.
The first night, all of the volunteers in my area were together and watching, on CNN, the advancement of the swirling red ball. Like every weather report, things were changing moment to moment. At one moment it was heading north of us, the other it was losing strength, next moment it was regaining strength. Still the night sky was clear and star filled. The next day, it had hit Nicaragua directly on the Caribbean coast at a category 5. It was coming directly at us in the north, and still holding strong, but having dropped to a category 4. We were told that it was to hit my location around noon. The skies at around 11 am began getting a bit cloudy and drizzle began to fall. We were hidden away in the safety of our hotel, but outside the children were still going to school and it was a normal day for all the rest of the city. I asked around a bit about past hurricanes and I was told that in our town, surrounded by miles of mountains, there is never any major impact by the winds of a hurricane, but the rain is what to watch out for. It causes flash floods and mudslides.
Come noon the outer reaches of the hurricane, according to the Doppler radar, were touching my city. The rained increased a bit, but still no wind to speak of. This continued all afternoon. At about 6 pm the storm had lost power, but still was advancing strong. It was directly above us at this point. The rain never got any stronger than a torrential drizzle and the winds were a whipping 2-3 miles per hour. The volunteers all huddled in my hotel room, watching DVDs and drinking vodka, sprites and pineapple juice. Were clearly were all terrified. I had experienced rain much harder since I have been here as well as stronger winds. Well that was about it. Nothing much ever materialized and it had moved on to Honduras.
I do not want to take anything away from the hurricane, it certainly did some damage on the coast. I was kind of hoping though for a bit more excitement. I am the type who likes to watch a bull fight in hopes of a god goring, or watching a car race for the accidents. I guess I should consider myself lucky that things were not worse. As of today, two days later, things are back to normal as if nothing ever happened. I did feel somewhat ridiculous to return to my neighborhood and see everyone again. I am sure they were thinking, “are you going to be evacuated for every rainstorm?”
I can now say that I am a hurricane survivor.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Purified Water Is For Sissies
I, since I have been here, have considered myself pretty tough. From the beginning I chose to throw caution to the wind and drink the local tap water. My rational, other then me being a bad ass, was that I am going to be living here for a long time and I might as well get used to the fun new organisms here. The water here has different bacteria, as well as an assortment of parasites and amoebas. I figured, who was I kidding by drinking purified bottled water to avoid sicknesses? If I did not get something from drinking water, I would from a salad, brushing my teeth, breathing etc. So I dove in. I drank pretty much any tap water I could get my hands on. I felt like quite a native when I would go to a restaurant, ask for water, and when they brought me a chilled water bottle with a glass and no ice, I would shoe it away and say tap is fine. Sometimes I would even get impressed looked from the servers. I wonder now if that was because even they don’t drink the water in those places.
Up to this point I have been pretty lucky with not getting any sicknesses from the contamination of water, I think that my system is clearly accustom to the water and I have now intestines of steel. I have drunk some pretty questionable glasses of water, but I am still here.
This is all to change however starting today. I was informed, by a local NGO (nongovernmental organization), that the water in my town is contaminated. They have apparently just tested the water here and found unsafe levels of lead and arsenic. For almost a year and a half I have been drinking 2-3 liters of water with lead and arsenic. LEAD AND ARSENIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The effects of lead are: may cause impaired mental function. Other symptoms are appetite loss, abdominal pain, constipation, fatigue, sleeplessness, irritability and headache. Long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water can cause cancer in the skin, lungs, bladder and kidney. It can also cause other skin changes such as thickening and pigmentation.
So what is going to happen in my community now that this information is known? This is certainly a legitimate question. Unfortunately the answer is nothing. The NGO has decided that they are probably not going to release the results. Why? Yet Another fantastic question. This is due to the fact that nothing will be done by the government if the information is released. The money does not exist to upgrade the filtration process. If the community finds out there will be a panic. Most people can not afford to buy bottled water, so they will be forced to use water that they know is contaminated. In this case, it is assumed that ignorance is bliss. My personal question is do I tell people I am friends with in the community? I know full well that they can not afford bottled water and they will tell people they know, eventually creating the panic that is trying to be avoided. Should I respect the decision of the NGO and whoever wants to keep it suppressed?
Suffice it to say I have, as of now, switched. I will be drinking strictly bottled water from this point on. This is certainly not an easy task. It is kind of like being a vegetarian. I have to inconvenience everyone I come into contact with. When I am at peoples houses and they offer me coffee, fresh fruit juice, etc. I have to turn them down and ask for either a coke or something else bottled.
Basically cut me some slack when I finally come home. Due to these contaminants my brain has slowed down to a crawl. I have forgotten most of your names, or even what you look like.
Up to this point I have been pretty lucky with not getting any sicknesses from the contamination of water, I think that my system is clearly accustom to the water and I have now intestines of steel. I have drunk some pretty questionable glasses of water, but I am still here.
This is all to change however starting today. I was informed, by a local NGO (nongovernmental organization), that the water in my town is contaminated. They have apparently just tested the water here and found unsafe levels of lead and arsenic. For almost a year and a half I have been drinking 2-3 liters of water with lead and arsenic. LEAD AND ARSENIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The effects of lead are: may cause impaired mental function. Other symptoms are appetite loss, abdominal pain, constipation, fatigue, sleeplessness, irritability and headache. Long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water can cause cancer in the skin, lungs, bladder and kidney. It can also cause other skin changes such as thickening and pigmentation.
So what is going to happen in my community now that this information is known? This is certainly a legitimate question. Unfortunately the answer is nothing. The NGO has decided that they are probably not going to release the results. Why? Yet Another fantastic question. This is due to the fact that nothing will be done by the government if the information is released. The money does not exist to upgrade the filtration process. If the community finds out there will be a panic. Most people can not afford to buy bottled water, so they will be forced to use water that they know is contaminated. In this case, it is assumed that ignorance is bliss. My personal question is do I tell people I am friends with in the community? I know full well that they can not afford bottled water and they will tell people they know, eventually creating the panic that is trying to be avoided. Should I respect the decision of the NGO and whoever wants to keep it suppressed?
Suffice it to say I have, as of now, switched. I will be drinking strictly bottled water from this point on. This is certainly not an easy task. It is kind of like being a vegetarian. I have to inconvenience everyone I come into contact with. When I am at peoples houses and they offer me coffee, fresh fruit juice, etc. I have to turn them down and ask for either a coke or something else bottled.
Basically cut me some slack when I finally come home. Due to these contaminants my brain has slowed down to a crawl. I have forgotten most of your names, or even what you look like.
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