Dealing with Sickness (Caused by the Environment) Part 2

The air pollution currently in much of China is listed as “severe”, ‘dangerous”, etc. This means you can almost taste the air right now, and it is much less in Beijing, than in the town we lived in a year ago, but they are all listed as 900+ on the air quality scale. ( I have been told that if Las Angeles reaches 100, people are told to stay inside. Does that put it in perspective?) You can see the air like a fog over everything. It is gritty in your mouth.  You need to clean off every surface repeatedly. It is almost like the sandstorms in Senegal, and as Rick says Beijing is almost as close to the Gobi as Dakar is to the Sahara, so probably that is a factor. We should be wearing facemasks, but we sent our facemasks with the new friends leaving on the airplane in hopes that they will not be infected on the airplane. Mostly I just ignore it.

Most of our time overseas has been in places where environmental factors might affect our health.  Water bourne pathogens are usually a factor. We were told at one point in Quito to boil our water particularly carefully because a dead body had been found in the reservoir. The only places we have lived that we could drink the water straight from the tap was the US and Panama. It just becomes routine to manipulate our water needs.

Then you have the infectious diseases such as malaria, hepatitis, dengue fever which are endemic to many places we have been. I have had hepatitis, Rick has had malaria. Basically, though we are pretty hardy. The Lord is very good in His protection. Although it is not environmental necessarily, today we are thinking and praying for our team leader here. He is a really good, conscientious team leader and has been here 3 years. But he is a rather brittle diabetic. He spent the last two days in the hospital being rehydrated and trying to bring some vomiting under control. That means riding a taxi across town, dealing with the non-English speaking system, and in his case paying most of this month’s paycheck. Pray for your overseas workers. Sickness often plays a distinct role in our daily lives.