Bathrooms:
-generally, there is no toilet paper provided in public bathrooms
-usually no toilet seats, or not one you´d ever put your bum on in the public bathrooms
-in all bathrooms, there are garbage cans next to toilets for putting toilet paper, which is not supposed to be flushed
-it is hard to find soap in the bathroom, and often an old, dirty rag is provided to dry your hands
Street Vendors:
-sell everything you can imagine...we have been warned about eating uncooked food from vendors and as we´ve been here longer, we´ve watched them more....
-we have seen several drop food (bread, radishes...) on dirty streets and replace to their stalls available for sale
-we have watched many vendors carefully hand bag peanuts and other munchies, with dirty hands, while sitting on filthy streets
Restaurants:
-as everywhere, restaurants here vary in cleanliness and quality. i find it insightful to watch the waitstaff at restaurants.
-at an italian place, we watched the waiter lick the top of the oil and vinegar bottles before wiping the tops ´clean´with a dirty rag
-at another restaurant, the only running water was from the bathroom sink; in the bathroom, again, there was no soap or toilet paper, only an old rag that was used to wipe hands. We wondered about the cleanliness of the food here, but never got sick.
Garbage:
-Each town has their own policy of garbage disposal
-Generally, bags of garbage are put out at night onto the streets of cities; people then rip open the bags to find food or returnable bottles. In addition, vendors place their ruined vegetables, or unsold and spoiled meats, on these piles. Therefore creating festering piles which surely attract rats.
-Cochabamba, is the first city where we´ve traveled, to have large garbage bins on each street corner, solving all of the above garbage issues.
Motorcycles, Cars and Buses:
-Cars and Buses do not have seat belts (except for the driver and front-seat passenger)
-Some of the taxis have replaced their broken windows with NON-safety glass windows
-Some busses don´t have working toilets (even for 12 hour rides)!
-It is common in Bolivia for taxis to be "transformers", cars from Japan or England that have been modified so the steering wheel is on the left, but the dashboard is still on the right
-We have several times seen a family of 3 or 4 on a motorcycle, none wearing helmets
-In addition, we have seen many kids held in the laps of car passengers in the front seat, while neither wear seatbelts.
-There are no baby seats, nor any conceivable way to inforce such a rule.
Traffic rules:
-Red lights mean slow down, look, and go...
6 comments:
So...sick yet?
I made the mistake of reading this as I was eating my lunch. yum.
and the point is...
if it's so perilous, how has their civilization survived?
it´s a testament to our immune systems for sure... i don´t think we north americans and europeans give our bodies enough credit for being able to fight off critters...
as for the lack of seatbelts and helmets, that´s just wreckless!
Well for sure we are way too obsessed with being ultra clean and germ-free. Not really a good thing...
Do people get sick more often? Is there a lot more infection? I have to imagine that there is, to a degree. I wonder what hospitals are like.
On the other hand, I bet people's systems get used to a higher level of germs and bacteria and fend them off better. (I'm telling you this with infallible scientific authority.)
I too thought that people were "used" to the bacteria here. BUT, I now hold a different opinion. My observations are that people here are living their daily lives with low-level GI issues. I think that people get used to having varying levels of diarrhea; something we Americans and Europeans have more or less controlled by our unbelievable levels of food sterility and other precautions. In addition, I do not believe people in Peru and Bolivia have a simple understanding of from what/where they are getting ill - I think microbiology is not a subject generally understood by the masses. In a future blog, we´ll report the joke our host family told us in reference to GI illness... stay tuned! (i´m sure you are delighted!)
Post a Comment