markellison a demandé: Flagyl was prescribed to me by a Syrian doctor 3 weeks after I arrived on account of 1 week of non-stop diarrhea most likely caused by taboulleh or some other unclean food item. Dettol is used not after shaking people's hands, but after using the toilet or handling money or before eating. Compass has been invaluable since not all maps have all the roads labeled, and not all roads are themselves labeled here in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria. Loose change is a necessity for the reason I mentioned.
Imocine was prescribed to my partner when she fell ill 10 weeks into our stay in Syria. She also got given to her the Modolan and Medeoran in order to stabilize her temperature. We're not sure how she got sick, but we suspect it was from tea served to us in a monastery where the water might not have been boiled for very long.
Syrians are great people, almost always super helpful and friendly. And their houses and cars and persons are generally clean. But the hygiene standards here are WOEFULLY inadequate when it comes to food storage and preparation.
(in connection to this post)
I’m aware some health problems may happen when people who are used to a certain environment move to another. It happens the other way around, too. Or even when people from a “developed country” move to another “developed country”.
But my entire problem with your post comes from the use of the term “developing world” - which is itself highly questionnable - used as a collective term embracing completely different and particular societies that may have little in common except for the fact that they’re considered “poorer” than Europe and North America. Furthermore, its use in this context reinforces a colonialist construct that categorises non-white countries and people as dirty and unhealthy, thus affirming the need for segregation from white people. It implies also that Western hygiene and general standards are superior, whereas others are “inadequate”. One may ask to whom are they inadequate, since most people in Syria, in this case, don’t get sick very easily because of their food, anyway, surely not more than people in the “West”.
Had your caption been something less generalising and ethnocentric, I’d only wish you a good adaptation. But I leave you with my most germful developing world greetings, have a nice day.
