<Have you been to.......>
I worked as a doctor in a town in Alaska, during a Hepatitis A outbreak. That disease is a classic "disease of poverty"; it doesn't happen in communities with universal indoor plumbing. Hard to get people to wash their hands before eating, when obtaining fresh water means going outside at 30 below, sawing ice blocks out of a frozen river, hauling it home, and melting it over a fuel oil stove.
When we were living there, my family took a vacation, to kayak in Mexico. Flew into a little town about halfway down the Baja California coast. The middle of nowhere. All of us noted how much more prosperous that town looked, than our Native town in Alaska. More private business. More private jobs. More restaurants, in a town about the same size. Less signs of social stress, like public drunkenness. The people were happier, seemed more in control of themselves, more optimistic about the future.
Also lived, at least briefly, in underdeveloped regions like Spain (1960s), Vietnam, Thailand, Mississippi.
Been there, done that, got the vaccinations. |
