I recently started teaching science to class 9 (I know this
sounds very vague, right now I guess I’m teaching biology, but I will have to
review chemistry and physics before the board exam) and am teaching a unit on
“Why We Fall Ill.” I came across a passage in their book which was particularly
striking. It said, “Human beings live in societies. Our social environment
therefore plays an important part in our individual health. We live in
villages, towns, or cities. In such places, our physical environment is decided
by our social environment. For example, just think what would happen if there
is no agency to ensure that garbage is collected and disposed? What would
happen if no one takes responsibility for cleaning the drains to ensure that
waste water does not get collected in the streets or open spaces? If there are
heaps of garbage and trash littered here and there, or if there is open drain
water lying stagnant around where we live, the possibility of poor health
increases.”
Now, I didn’t learn anything new by reading this and I wasn’t wowed by its factual integrity. Rather, I laughed. I laughed because this textbook is being read by kids who don’t even have to imagine living in a place where garbage isn’t collected and sewage water lays putrefying in the streets – these are two day-to-day aspects of Banaras. And here the book is asking students to just think what would happen. If anything, the book should be asking students to just think what would happen if the garbage were actually picked up and the sewage properly disposed of.
I am constantly baffled by the beliefs behind health in India. Maybe coming from a home where my dad is a doctor and my mom spent 6 years in graduate school studying microbiology lends me to having a deeper understanding of health than most, but STILL (still what? I can’t even begin to tell).
The past week has been rough on me and my fellow BYPers health-wise. All of us have been hit with some level of sickness or another and almost every Indian person who we encounter attributes it to the changing weather. Actually, every sickness we have ever had has always been attributed to the weather. It’s either too hot for our bodies, too cold, or just the mere fact that the weather is somewhere in between will send our immune systems collapsing. No, it can’t be because of the huge number of feces lying in the street or because of the trash piles that plague every street corner and are happy homes for harmful bacteria. It can’t be because of the sewage water that I bike past (and through when it’s raining). No, it must be the weather and the best prescription is to wear two jackets and a beanie every day until February 15th (something Ben P is being forced to do on account of his host mother). You know 70 degree weather; it’s a real killer.
Roli Ma’am (a colleague of mine at South Point School) missed a day of school because she her hand was injured. When she turned up the following day, her right ring finger was incredibly swollen, red, and hot. When Ben and I asked if she had been to the doctor she replied yes, so we asked what had happened to her finger. Her response was priceless. “It’s the cold weather.” Since when has cold weather caused a single finger to swell up immensely and since when have doctors in India been perpetuating the myth that weather is the cause of all illnesses?!?! I really hope that she hadn’t actually gone to see a doctor and is now going to see one. As Chase joked when Ben recounted the story, “You know, I cut myself on this rusty nail yesterday, but my finger is as swollen from this cold and rainy weather.”
Another factor that many Indians swear leads to bad health is bathing at night. Now, this concept I really don’t understand. Their thought is that if you bathe at night then you will never get warm again and you will be sick the next day. They think this point holds especially true for winter when whether you have warm water or not, taking a bucket bath is rather unpleasant. No matter how fast you bathe, water is always evaporating faster, leaving you shivering in a 50 degree bathroom. How bathing at night will make you sick when you immediately don warm clothes and snuggle under thick blankets is beyond me. If you bathe in the morning then after your bath you have to face the 50 degree weather in just your clothes. So many times students have come up to me shivering in the morning and with icy hands because they just took a bath. If anything, bathing at night is healthier!
This idea of sickness-inducing nocturnal bathes has been a rough concept to battle for us night-showerers. Stephen’s host parents said he shouldn’t bathe at night because it’s too cold, that he shouldn’t bathe in the morning before coming to the program house because he doesn’t have enough time, and suggested that he just bathe on the weekends. Stephen, understandably, wanted to bathe more regularly than every weekend and had to resort to asking for a bucket of hot water with which to “clean his feet” every night. It wasn’t a total lie since he actually did partially use the water to clean his feet, but he also used it on the rest of his body. Chase and I have met lesser resistance to night-bathing than that, but we both have had the “bathing at night is bad for health” lecture from our host families.
This paragraph is mostly just a funny, semi-related anecdote from Chase (I am famous for giving semi-related anecdotes). One day she brought home a packet of pasteurized, refrigerated, non-expired milk and had it with dinner. It wasn’t a big deal since she’d been buying packets of this kind of milk and drinking them fairly consistently at the program house. Later that night, however, she got sick and threw up because of a totally unrelated bug that was going around our group. Her host mom and sister swore that it was the milk that made her sick. Now, even months after the event and several successful milk drinking endeavors, every time Chase brings home a packet of milk to drink her host family says, “Chase, you shouldn’t be drinking that milk. Remember what happened last time?” Yes, last time Chase had milk absolutely nothing happened.
The best thing about this blog post is that I started writing it roughly two hours ago and had initially thought I finished it after only thirty minutes. Every time I got up to do something – go to my dance/Zumba class, eat dinner, bathe, etc. – I found myself remembering more times that I’ve faced ridiculous notions on health in this country. Here I am staring at a rant over 1200 words long and I still know that tomorrow morning when I go to post it I will think of yet another example to throw into the mix.
Now, I didn’t learn anything new by reading this and I wasn’t wowed by its factual integrity. Rather, I laughed. I laughed because this textbook is being read by kids who don’t even have to imagine living in a place where garbage isn’t collected and sewage water lays putrefying in the streets – these are two day-to-day aspects of Banaras. And here the book is asking students to just think what would happen. If anything, the book should be asking students to just think what would happen if the garbage were actually picked up and the sewage properly disposed of.
I am constantly baffled by the beliefs behind health in India. Maybe coming from a home where my dad is a doctor and my mom spent 6 years in graduate school studying microbiology lends me to having a deeper understanding of health than most, but STILL (still what? I can’t even begin to tell).
The past week has been rough on me and my fellow BYPers health-wise. All of us have been hit with some level of sickness or another and almost every Indian person who we encounter attributes it to the changing weather. Actually, every sickness we have ever had has always been attributed to the weather. It’s either too hot for our bodies, too cold, or just the mere fact that the weather is somewhere in between will send our immune systems collapsing. No, it can’t be because of the huge number of feces lying in the street or because of the trash piles that plague every street corner and are happy homes for harmful bacteria. It can’t be because of the sewage water that I bike past (and through when it’s raining). No, it must be the weather and the best prescription is to wear two jackets and a beanie every day until February 15th (something Ben P is being forced to do on account of his host mother). You know 70 degree weather; it’s a real killer.
Roli Ma’am (a colleague of mine at South Point School) missed a day of school because she her hand was injured. When she turned up the following day, her right ring finger was incredibly swollen, red, and hot. When Ben and I asked if she had been to the doctor she replied yes, so we asked what had happened to her finger. Her response was priceless. “It’s the cold weather.” Since when has cold weather caused a single finger to swell up immensely and since when have doctors in India been perpetuating the myth that weather is the cause of all illnesses?!?! I really hope that she hadn’t actually gone to see a doctor and is now going to see one. As Chase joked when Ben recounted the story, “You know, I cut myself on this rusty nail yesterday, but my finger is as swollen from this cold and rainy weather.”
Another factor that many Indians swear leads to bad health is bathing at night. Now, this concept I really don’t understand. Their thought is that if you bathe at night then you will never get warm again and you will be sick the next day. They think this point holds especially true for winter when whether you have warm water or not, taking a bucket bath is rather unpleasant. No matter how fast you bathe, water is always evaporating faster, leaving you shivering in a 50 degree bathroom. How bathing at night will make you sick when you immediately don warm clothes and snuggle under thick blankets is beyond me. If you bathe in the morning then after your bath you have to face the 50 degree weather in just your clothes. So many times students have come up to me shivering in the morning and with icy hands because they just took a bath. If anything, bathing at night is healthier!
This idea of sickness-inducing nocturnal bathes has been a rough concept to battle for us night-showerers. Stephen’s host parents said he shouldn’t bathe at night because it’s too cold, that he shouldn’t bathe in the morning before coming to the program house because he doesn’t have enough time, and suggested that he just bathe on the weekends. Stephen, understandably, wanted to bathe more regularly than every weekend and had to resort to asking for a bucket of hot water with which to “clean his feet” every night. It wasn’t a total lie since he actually did partially use the water to clean his feet, but he also used it on the rest of his body. Chase and I have met lesser resistance to night-bathing than that, but we both have had the “bathing at night is bad for health” lecture from our host families.
This paragraph is mostly just a funny, semi-related anecdote from Chase (I am famous for giving semi-related anecdotes). One day she brought home a packet of pasteurized, refrigerated, non-expired milk and had it with dinner. It wasn’t a big deal since she’d been buying packets of this kind of milk and drinking them fairly consistently at the program house. Later that night, however, she got sick and threw up because of a totally unrelated bug that was going around our group. Her host mom and sister swore that it was the milk that made her sick. Now, even months after the event and several successful milk drinking endeavors, every time Chase brings home a packet of milk to drink her host family says, “Chase, you shouldn’t be drinking that milk. Remember what happened last time?” Yes, last time Chase had milk absolutely nothing happened.
The best thing about this blog post is that I started writing it roughly two hours ago and had initially thought I finished it after only thirty minutes. Every time I got up to do something – go to my dance/Zumba class, eat dinner, bathe, etc. – I found myself remembering more times that I’ve faced ridiculous notions on health in this country. Here I am staring at a rant over 1200 words long and I still know that tomorrow morning when I go to post it I will think of yet another example to throw into the mix.
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