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In keeping with my recent posts concerning global inequality, development and poverty... check this map out. One more reason why those people who like to make asinine comments like 'the US is a 3rd world country' have no idea what the hell they are talking about, even if you discount the fact that they apparently don't know what '3rd world' means (3rd world does not have anything to do with poverty, levels of development, etc.
A good friend, and former roommate of mine when I lived in Denver and was working on my MA in International Development, spent a summer working at an orphanage in rural Rwanda. Before traveling to Rwanda, however, she spent two weeks in Nairobi, Kenya. While there she worked with an NGO doing basic sanitation/hygiene/health outreach to those living in the slum of Kibera (Africa's largest slum/shanty town, consisting of more than a million people). She was assigned to a group of 25 young children living in Kibera where she was expected to teach them about basic hygiene and health practices to help them avoid illnesses like dysentery. However, she was disheartened and found it pointless... why? When she asked the 25 children how many of them had regular access to a latrine (not an indoor toilet, not a room with running water, or a sink... just a latrine... just a small hole in the ground with four walls around it, a cheaper, dirtier version of a latrine you'd use at a big music concert or state fair) and only ONE child raised their hand indicating that only about 4% of Kibera's million+ residents had regular access to a hole in the ground that they could **** in - think of the implications - there is no soap, if there was there is no clean water to use the soap in and... no toilet paper! What was even worse? Without latrines, where does the **** and **** go? And with no garbage collection, because it is a slum, where does the garbage go? Answer? The street: she told me that the streets of Kibera were literally an inch thick with human and animal feces, **** and trash... and dead animal bodies, everywhere. She had to throw away the clothes and shoes she wore the day she spent in Kibera because she spent the day walking through streets where the human **** sometimes was so deep that it went above her shoes. She was depressed by it all, obviously, and particularly because she was supposed to teach hygiene but realized how pointless it was when the children were living in a condition in which maintaining proper hygiene was literally impossible. No wonder Kibera's average life expectacy is around 38 years.
In Turkey, once you get outside the cities, the public toilets are just pits in the ground and there is no toilet paper. You either bring your own, pay to use a private toilet, or you use your hand. Literally just your hand, that's what most of the locals do. There is normally a guy who stands at the door and for a few cents he will squart some liquid soap on your hand but there is no running water to wash it off with.
Luckily, I never had to use one for more than just taking a leak others in my group were not so lucky.
In Turkey, once you get outside the cities, the public toilets are just pits in the ground and there is no toilet paper. You either bring your own, pay to use a private toilet, or you use your hand. Literally just your hand, that's what most of the locals do. There is normally a guy who stands at the door and for a few cents he will squart some liquid soap on your hand but there is no running water to wash it off with.
Luckily, I never had to use one for more than just taking a leak others in my group were not so lucky.
I'm a PhD Candidate in political science, my areas of expertise are development, nationalism, ethnicity, democratization and globalization with a focus on Southeast Asia and Thailand in particular. I spent a month living in isolated 'hill tribe minority villages' in northern Thailand where entire families live off of maybe a $100 a year - you should have seen some of the... squat 'toilets' I had the pleasure of meeting!
'
Hasn't changed much in 40 + years since my dad got stationed overseas. We always had several rolls of toilet paper in the trunk of the car, as we traveled Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
In Turkey, once you get outside the cities, the public toilets are just pits in the ground and there is no toilet paper. You either bring your own, pay to use a private toilet, or you use your hand. Literally just your hand, that's what most of the locals do. There is normally a guy who stands at the door and for a few cents he will squart some liquid soap on your hand but there is no running water to wash it off with.
It was the same deal with the toilet paper and soap when we went to Poland in 1997, although I am not sure about the hand thing. We visited a few former Soviet-block countries while my husband was stationed in Germany. The conditions we saw there is why I am so adamantly against communism or socialism. The former East Germany was economically and socially about 35 years behind the former West Germany. They did, however, have standing toilet facilities.
In keeping with my recent posts concerning global inequality, development and poverty... check this map out. One more reason why those people who like to make asinine comments like 'the US is a 3rd world country' have no idea what the hell they are talking about, even if you discount the fact that they apparently don't know what '3rd world' means (3rd world does not have anything to do with poverty, levels of development, etc.
Well, most people have never been out of the United States first off.....
Second, most people think that being a 3rd world country (in the United States) means no cable, no cell phone, a car that does not cost $50,000 (damn if peopoe drive a $3,000 car now a days, they don't look cool), no lap tops/computers, having to skip a meal at McDonalds....
And when you ahve people like Henry here, the will just parrot him...
Quote:
Henry Chao, an official at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services who is overseeing the technology of the exchanges said at a recent conference. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.”
Providing clean potable water and removing human and animal waste (****) should be the highest priority of any foreign aid program. IMHO removing the cause of most sanitation related plagues is far more important than providing the local thugs with weapons for their security or our proxy wars.
Last edited by GregW; 03-27-2013 at 06:55 AM..
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