The team came back from visiting another community this afternoon. In the street was a barrel lid with a radiation symbol - but thankfully not radioactive. But they then went to a house where radioactive barrels had been stored. Two of their children are now sick - tired, nosebleeds and diarrhoea - possibly early signs of radiation poisoning - we can't say for sure and the local clinics are so woefully under-equipped that they can't either. They had given a second barrel to a neighbour, who washed it out. His little girl, no more than six or seven years old, drank the water he used to wash the container - she too is now sick...
The US military are offering $3 for returned barrels from Tuwaitha. But they haven't done their homework. The local people don't want the money, they want the barrels - they're useful. If the military had checked they would also know that $3 doesn't buy a new one - they are much more expensive than that. $6-7 each is the going rate at the moment, in a country where the monthly wage is about $20 - if of course you have a wage.
So what use is $3? You can't carry water in three dollar bills, you can't store your food in three dollar bills and you can't cook with them either.
It reminded me of that old Indian legend: when the last tree is cut, the last fish is dead and the last river poisoned, we will remember that we can't eat money.
You can however, eat yellow cake. One of the other unpalatable discoveries of the day was a man who had done just that.
Why did you eat it, they asked him? I was curious he answered. Curiosity that might just kill him.
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