Cyclone Nargis

Image from sos-arsenic.net.

It's time for Anonymous Poo to be serious. Right when she was wallowing in self pity, she read this Op Ed article in the New York Times about the cyclone that recently hit Myanmar.

According to writer Rose George:

"The storm also devastated other things that haven’t made the headlines, but that can mean the difference between life and death: toilets. Even before the cyclone, 75 percent of Burmese had no latrines. Like some 2.6 billion other people worldwide, they do their business by roadsides, on train tracks or wherever they can. But the few latrines that did exist in the Irrawaddy Delta are now flooded or flattened, and their contents have seeped into already filthy waters...

Of course food and water are crucial. But feces can undermine both. If people are eating fecal particles, no amount of high-energy biscuits will make them well. In poor countries, diarrhea is the reason you find malnourished children in well-fed families. It’s why millions of girls drop out of school, and why millions of dollars’ worth of productivity is lost from workers sick with this week’s bout of dysentery."

Unicef is working to ship more latrines to Myanmar. To donate Unicef (perhaps using a bit of your Economic Stimulus rebate check), please visit this site.

After all, everyone deserves decent sanitation and clean water.