Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Avoiding Parasitic Invasions

By the time I return to the USA I think I'll be so used to not consuming tap water that it'll take me a few weeks to re-acclimate. Part of me wishes I was a scientist so I could truly understand better what can harm me and other times I'd rather not know exactly what parasites lurk in the water I shower in.

Preventative Actions:

1. Never ever drink the tap water. Bottled water only, or water in plastic BAGS which is an awesome concept.
2. Brush teeth with bottled water only.
3. Shower in tap water but don't open your mouth. The effects may not be as instant as Montezuma's revenge.
4. Soak all leafy vegetables in water that has a splash of bleach in it. Yes, bleach. mmm!
5. Scrub all other veggies with soap and water and peel them whenever possible.
6. I'm ashamed to say I'm still not sure how our dishes get washed...we seldom do them ourselves...but today I think it was with rainwater!
7. Don't breathe in when Keba the guard dog pants in your face. She's never had her teeth cleaned and eats fish bones and lizards and prefers drinking chlorinated water.
8. Wearing rubber-soled shoes at all times helps prevent the significant electric shocks that happen when touching electronics, or touching people who are touching electronics or touching people who are touching people who are touching electronics.
9. When water runs, shower (even if it's yellowish). If it turns off mid shower wait, maybe for five minutes, and pray that enough will trickle out eventually to rinse the shampoo from your hair. Don't even bother trying to shower when someone is running water anywhere else in the house.
10. When it rains search out the leaks in the house and make sure they get contained in ways that won't leak to our powercords and computers and editing set ups and sound decks and camera battery chargers.

I'm still waiting to find out what the water here will do to my film when I develop it. But today I was lent an awesome Pentacon Six medium format camera that a friend at USAID bought at a pawn shop in Romania. It was made is East Germany sometime between 1950 and 1990 (come on wiki camera fans, can't you give me something better than that??). It's gorgeous and in pristine condition and I can't wait to play.

Tomorrow we're planning on going out to film and photograph the "Sappeur"s, who as far as I can decipher are men in Kinshasa who dress up extravagantly and stroll the streets. Perhaps the Congolese version of bling? It's obscure to me and seems indescribable through words but hopefully I'll have loads of photos and stories tomorrow to post.

Note to self: Don't google image "parasites" for "fun".

3 comments:

  1. I'm really enjoying reading this.

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  2. If your film gets wet, keep it wet until you develop it- but you already knew that.

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  3. I brought developing supplies with me! The chemicals didn't explode in my luggage, hooray. I'm going to test try developing a couple rolls this weekend and see what happens.

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