As a social disease, just months ago it appeared to be an affliction of the poor, now it's quite obvious that nobody is spared.
What is Cholera anyway? It is a disease like dysentery, caused by ingesting food or water that is contaminated with the bacterium vibrio cholerae. These bacteria thrive in waste matter. Unfortunately, with poor hygiene practices and improper waste management, at some point food and faecal matter will make contact. It takes between 12 hours and 5 days for one to display symptoms of the disease, which occur in the form of very VERY runny bowel movement. This watery diarrhoea can lead to extreme dehydration and even death if left untreated. Cholera is deadly, so it's very annoying to see how a pompous hotel like Weston or the caterer in Karen can play it down like we're dealing with the flu.
 |
| Image source: BBC |
1. You treat yourself to some steamy nyamchom at Ole Polos, on the hills of Kiserian. It's good, very good. You take a few steps to the make-shift hot water tank and wash your hands. When you return to your table, those huge pesky flies have created a black sheet on your roast, which disappears in a buzz with a wave of your hands. The mutura tastes good, really good, but is now laced with vibrio cholerae the annoying flies picked from the nearby pit latrine...
2. Your stuck in traffic in the hot Nairobi sun. The cars are not moving and your thirst is building up. You'll have a drink of water you just bought from a hawker. And now you take a bite into that juicy green apple you bought from the same vendor, that a few minutes ago had to dash to the iko Toilet across the street and didn't bother to wash his hands with soap...
3. You're watching your weight, so you'll skip a full lunch meal for a healthy veggie salad sold at a nearby supermarket. They say the cabbage and lettuce are fresh. Indeed they are, you can tell by their bright colours. But you're not aware that today's lettuce was picked from a farm we read about in the news, whose farming incorporates sewage matter. Since lettuce, carrots and tomatoes are not cooked...
4. It's a chilly evening. As you walk home you're hit by the irresistible aroma of roasting maize. It's clear that you just MUST have one cob today. At the stand, the roaster is MIA, but he arrives shortly just as you were about to give up. He let's you have the one that's ready. He picks it up quickly in his bare hands and puts it in the peel. You walk away, now chewing on your chilli lemon maize cob, unaware that when he was MIA, he was in a nearby bush taking a call of nature...
5. This water rationing/shortage issue is no joke. The whole block of apartments is in need of water right now. So the caretaker makes a call to his guy and a blue tanker arrives to manage the shortage. They make 3 trips, that's about 30,000 litres of water. They assure the tenants that they have a clean source, but it's what they won't say that's shocking, that they were here a couple of weeks ago...as exhausters...
And now as I write this post I am starting to get paranoid; it's very easy to spread Cholera and equally easy to catch it. At home, the best we can do is to:
- carefully wash and sanitise fruits and veggies before eating them raw (see earlier post)
- wash your hands as soon as you walk into your home from work or school
- teach children how to properly wash their hands after using the toilet
- encourage the housekeeper to wash hands prior to food preparation
Images on Thumbnail sources: Gordon Ramsey, Poop emoji, Flat screen TV
Read more articles here
Like us at Tulip Facebook
Tulip Cleaning Website
No comments:
Post a Comment