I decided to write about some of the health issues I am seeing here in the city. Apart from the fact that all residents hack and hork loogies like it's a religion, there are many things here that are very challenging to see.
Wheelchairs are nonexistent on the streets, I assume largely because the sidewalks are awful and people in wheelchairs wouldn't be able to get anywhere. It's quite surprising the number of amputees in the city, all using crutches of varying quality- most of the time people rely on bamboo sticks which is actually quite impressive to see. They put them behind their armpits and hold on to them quite far down. This is especially interesting to see in the case of double leg amputees. Old people use walking sticks and tend to walk on the roads.
That said, in Mirpur where I live the sidewalks have greatly improved since my time here. In the two weeks leading up to the Cricket World Cup, sidewalks on both sides of Mirpur Avenue were redone manually with layers of bricks covered in hand--mixed cement; having mixed cement with shovels in Mexico in 2009, I am amazed at the speed in which sidewalks materialized over the course of those two weeks. Women and men laid the bricks, then women filled in the spaces with sand, dirt and garbage before the cement was laid down, patterned lengthwise in bars with long pieces of plywood. It does stand to prove that this city has the capacity to improve its infrastructure, although without the Cricket World Cup it appears the motivation is nonexistent. They also repainted all the black and white bars on the edges of the high sidewalks between Mirpur and Gulshan. The city spent no one knows how much on decorations for the World Cup, in the form of Christmas lights draped over sidewalk fences and road lights, new "gardens" where the potted plants sit in formations around wooden cricketers, and lanterns.
Back to health things, I have recently discovered what arsenic poisoning actually does. While I assumed it would degrade internal systems, which I think it still might do, it disfigures the face and causes the skin to change color. In a country of varying shades of brown, the WHITE splotches are actually a very important social issue. Young girls with arsenic poisoning are unmarryable, and old women tend to wander the streets alone, bringing a whole new dimension to the fashion of dreadlocks. Beggars thus result not just from economic issues, but from social stigmas and gender issues. Divorce is also an important precursor to economic instability.
One of the most obvious accessibility issues is the fact that no building here is one storey. If you cannot get up the stairs, many restaurants and shops are inaccesible. A few have intermittent access to escalators, while some others have elevators, but unless you are in a mega mall you generally have to hoof it. Interestingly, I have yet to see a disabled employee at the Grameen building despite the elevators. Speaking of which, the other day I was in an elevator when the power went out and thankfully it didn't plummit from the 17th floor where we were, but it was still a relatively scary experience. There was also a political murder last week, so life in the third world continues its excitement.
That's it for now, back to my research!
Love, Lesley (aka Lasli)
Wheelchairs are nonexistent on the streets, I assume largely because the sidewalks are awful and people in wheelchairs wouldn't be able to get anywhere. It's quite surprising the number of amputees in the city, all using crutches of varying quality- most of the time people rely on bamboo sticks which is actually quite impressive to see. They put them behind their armpits and hold on to them quite far down. This is especially interesting to see in the case of double leg amputees. Old people use walking sticks and tend to walk on the roads.
That said, in Mirpur where I live the sidewalks have greatly improved since my time here. In the two weeks leading up to the Cricket World Cup, sidewalks on both sides of Mirpur Avenue were redone manually with layers of bricks covered in hand--mixed cement; having mixed cement with shovels in Mexico in 2009, I am amazed at the speed in which sidewalks materialized over the course of those two weeks. Women and men laid the bricks, then women filled in the spaces with sand, dirt and garbage before the cement was laid down, patterned lengthwise in bars with long pieces of plywood. It does stand to prove that this city has the capacity to improve its infrastructure, although without the Cricket World Cup it appears the motivation is nonexistent. They also repainted all the black and white bars on the edges of the high sidewalks between Mirpur and Gulshan. The city spent no one knows how much on decorations for the World Cup, in the form of Christmas lights draped over sidewalk fences and road lights, new "gardens" where the potted plants sit in formations around wooden cricketers, and lanterns.
Back to health things, I have recently discovered what arsenic poisoning actually does. While I assumed it would degrade internal systems, which I think it still might do, it disfigures the face and causes the skin to change color. In a country of varying shades of brown, the WHITE splotches are actually a very important social issue. Young girls with arsenic poisoning are unmarryable, and old women tend to wander the streets alone, bringing a whole new dimension to the fashion of dreadlocks. Beggars thus result not just from economic issues, but from social stigmas and gender issues. Divorce is also an important precursor to economic instability.
One of the most obvious accessibility issues is the fact that no building here is one storey. If you cannot get up the stairs, many restaurants and shops are inaccesible. A few have intermittent access to escalators, while some others have elevators, but unless you are in a mega mall you generally have to hoof it. Interestingly, I have yet to see a disabled employee at the Grameen building despite the elevators. Speaking of which, the other day I was in an elevator when the power went out and thankfully it didn't plummit from the 17th floor where we were, but it was still a relatively scary experience. There was also a political murder last week, so life in the third world continues its excitement.
That's it for now, back to my research!
Love, Lesley (aka Lasli)
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