From Poppy Day to Poopy Day
Yesterday was Poppy Day, or Rememberance Day, so I gave a thought to the dead. Although British, my mum’s Uncle Eric was at Gallipoli. His slender story follows a battle where a pile of corpses was waiting to be buried; amongst the mass of limbs someone saw a hand move. The man was not as dead as had been thought and they pulled him out. Uncle Eric was then lucky enough to live until the fifties or sixties. He was missing an eye, but alive.
I wonder how such horrors would have affected him, but all I’ve managed to get out of my mum is that he was a very nice man. He spent much of his life as a bachelor and everyone thought he’d never get married. Then quite suddenly he announced that he was engaged, and spent the rest of his life married to Aunt Viola. They were very happy together, apparently.
Over breakfast, I read a review of a new book The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste, a new looking at human waste and how we dispose of it. The review mentioned that “Eighty per cent of illness is caused by or linked to the presence of faeces in water. Diarrhoea kills more children than Aids or TB.” That’s something to consider: it sounds like a massacre.
According to the World Health Organisation diarrhoea “causes 4% of all deaths and 5% of health loss to disability. It is most commonly caused by gastrointestinal infections which kill around 2.2 million people globally each year, mostly children in developing countries.” These infections are commonly caused by contaminated water. I picture yet more piles of bodies.
It sounds like some sort of action must be in order. Perhaps there should be a world Poopy Day or even Ploppy Day to provide water and sanitation to those communities who lack it. I’m sure Uncle Eric wouldn’t mind.
Tags: Diarrhoea, Gallipoli, ploppy day, poopy day, Poppy Day, The Big Necessity, water and sanitation