I traveled to Central America during the dirty little wars of the 1980\u2019s, when mercenaries (today they are called \u201cprivate contractors\u201d) were maiming and killing impoverished workers, farmers, and Indians to protect local dictators and their wealthiest cronies and families that held virtual all of the society\u2019s assets.\u00a0\u00a0 One mid day I sat on a caf\u00e9 veranda in a small city with several co-workers when I noticed that one of the women at my table was very studiously wiping the rim of her drinking glass with a handkerchief.\u00a0 Marta (real person, fictional name) was from Mexico City, and was attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison for her doctorate when she decided to travel with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing, Marta?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 I was taken with the peculiarity of such a gesture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am trying to not get sick,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n
Being the medical officer for our little band of co-workers and visitors, I pointed out the futility of her efforts.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou are just moving germs around the glass, Marta.\u00a0 Plus our beverages and food will be hopelessly contaminated.\u201d\u00a0 We were also guests in workers\u2019 homes, and not residing in multi-starred hotels with clean food and water provided for other tourists.\u00a0 I had dispensed anti-biotic pills to my troupe, to be taken each day \u201cpreventively,\u201d of undetermined effectiveness.<\/p>\n
We both recalled having sat with a writer from Boston on the flight to San Jose, who informed us of her nearly dying at a local hospital from food poisoning on a previous trip to the region.<\/p>\n
Marta had elaborated, \u201cWhen I moved to Madison, I could not believe it.\u00a0 Within a week, I was well.\u00a0 In Mexico City, I was sick all the time.\u00a0 All my life, my parents, my siblings, none of us really well a single day of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marta was pointing to vital societal differences between North America and Central America and Mexico.\u00a0 At that time, US taxpayers were still adequately funding a very critical segment of public health for citizens to \u201cbe well (most) all the time.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The municipal provisions and laws and money guaranteeing clean water, with its consistent and reliable separation from sewage, will always constitute one of the most important measures of a modern and healthy standard of living.\u00a0 If coli-form water flows out of a residential or commercial faucet, no one can clean his own hands, or properly cleanse fresh fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 For a very long while, that has been an assumed basic social provision in the United States.<\/p>\n
On a Sunday some weeks ago, the New York Times published a long article about the defunding of this feature of our modern lives, and the resulting breakdown of public health.\u00a0 Over forty large cities were sighted in the article, including New York, with profoundly antiquated water and sewer systems.\u00a0 Public health officials have been tracking the flooding of sewer facilities during heavy rains, and the visits to emergency rooms for gastrointestinal illnesses by the city\u2019s residents. \u00a0\u00a0It turns out there is a surge in use of health facilities, coincident with the rains, occurring in NYC at least once a month.<\/p>\n
With the breakdown of funding for infrastructure in America, I have been wondering if I will see other \u201cMarta\u2019s\u201d making the futile gestures of trying to wipe away the source of illnesses in the era of a shredded social contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I traveled to Central America during the dirty little wars of the 1980\u2019s, when mercenaries (today they are called \u201cprivate contractors\u201d) were maiming and killing impoverished workers, farmers, and Indians to protect local dictators and their wealthiest cronies and families that held virtual all of the society\u2019s assets.\u00a0\u00a0 One mid day I sat on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.garystelzer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}