Don't drink the water

Guest Blogger:Lucy Mele

When I’m home, I’m not much of a risk taker. I don’t do roller coasters or ski black diamonds. I always wear my seatbelt and I stop at yellow lights. I don’t even put those little red pepper flakes on my pizza (spicy food kind of hurts my mouth a little).

But for some reason, I always gain a renewed sense of invincibility after I leave the boundaries of our half acre plot in the ’burbs to set out on a new adventure. My “travel alter-ego” will often find herself hitchhiking across countries and eating weird things like duck feet and shark blubber. It’s as though I feel compelled – almost obligated – to make new and different decisions when I’m in a new and different place.

There is one risk, however, I’ve always been careful not to take, especially when I’m in a developing country (and by careful, I mean borderline paranoid) and that’s water consumption. No raw veggies, no unpeeled fruit, nothing made or paired with ice. I had the whole routine down to a science. Or so I thought.

I spent a few days in Haiti earlier this month delivering solar-powered flashlights to school kids on the rural island of La Gonave. The island has no electricity, and the students can’t study at night (unless they use a kerosene lamp, which eats up costly fuel and can fill the small, cinderblock huts with greasy black smoke). The trip was through an organization called Haiti Lumiere de Demain (Haiti Light of Tomorrow), which works to create educational opportunities for students in Haiti’s rural areas, as well as build an environmentally sustainable community on La Gonave, where there is currently no waste removal system.

Sci Fi looking giardia

It was a pretty incredible trip – we spent our time talking to people, playing soccer with kids, and getting to know each other over long, plantain-heavy meals at the fabulously decorated home of the equally fabulous Madame Fifi. I got home about a week and a half ago with interesting stories, new friends, and great pictures.

Unfortunately, I also brought home a case of giardia.

Even local tap water can be dangerous

Giardia can be a traveler’s worst nightmare. It’s a microscopic, hard-shelled parasite that lives in the intestine of the person who is infected. Symptoms show up about a week or two after infection, and can be pretty miserable -- cramping, diarrhea, nausea, dehydration, the whole bit.

Aboriginal guts have built a tolerance for local water

Which leads me to where I am now: writing this blog from my couch while sipping Gatorade, watching Saved by the Bell reruns, and wondering how the hell I, queen of Purell, could have possibly picked up the parasite.

I cracked open my copy of “Born to Explore” for answers. According to Richard, giardia can be caused by a number of things, including consuming, swimming in, or accidentally ingesting contaminated water from tainted lakes or ponds, eating infected food, or touching your mouth with contaminated hands.

I still have no idea how I got sick, and, in retrospect, I could have contracted this thing any one of those ways. No matter how crazy I was about keeping clean and avoiding bacteria, there are certain things you have to do, like bathe and eat, to avoid getting sick in other ways.

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I guess the lesson here is that parasites can be sneaky, and you can never be too careful about what you consume. Take the advice in “Born to Explore” – “boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it.”
Trust me, you don’t want to learn the hard way.

Cavorting with a canoe

Guest blog by Nora Lewis Allen

I first heard about the elusive Six-Hour Canoe while reading Richard Wiese’s book “Born to Explore”during a break from writing a particularly mundane paper.

Wooden guide boats nestled in a rack in the Adirondacks of NY.

I was immediately drawn to the idea; it seemed fun and somewhat easy, but for the most part I couldn’t believe that I could actually build a floatable vessel, albeit a small one, in six hours.

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Building a 6 hour canoe.

Launching a 6 hour canoe 12 hours later.

I immediately called an adventurous friend and that night visions of canoes danced in my head.

Wooden boats are floating art.

That week I had a short story due in my narrative writing class. Naturally, I chose to center my story on two friends who decided to build their own canoe. During my critique all my fellow writers could talk about was the canoe; they absolutely loved it.

Allusions, metaphors, poetic language—all were forgotten. All they wanted was more of the canoe. Was it a real thing? Where did I learn about it? They loved how the characters weren’t doing something that was expected, but rather something adventurous and proactive. I believe one adjective used was “kick-ass.” I was surprised by these reactions. The canoe didn’t seem like such a radical idea to me, but in a time when college students use books as a last resort for research and all free-time is spent cruising Facebook, daily life starts to become mundane. My classmates craved the ingenuity and spontaneity of a character who just wanted to build a canoe for the hell of it.

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As for my canoe? I am wholly committed to building it this summer with a friend. Will it take us only six hours? I doubt it, but for us it is not necessarily the completion time that matters most. Working on a project for the pure enjoyment of breaking up our usual routine? That does. And how about the actual building? I’ll get back to you on that one…

Missing Link Hype

By guest blogger Cassandra Lobo

While flipping through the channels one day, I saw a story on what was possibly the missing link. All of the hype and excitement people are expressing over anthropology is great. What exactly is the missing link? The missing link is the crucial information that has been missing for centuries about our evolution as humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Many anthropologists strongly believe that Ida is the missing link, for it is the most complete and best preserved primate fossil ever discovered. These unique fossils are going to help us find the connection with other mammals, because most other fossils found are broken and imcomplete and are difficult to examine.

What truly defines a human being? In order to identify our past and history, we need to first identify what makes us human. Human beings and primates are extremely similar. We share many traits and characteristics, but human beings are much more developed. Human beings have the ability to communicate at a much higher level. We are able to have intellectual conversations, share and converse about similar situations, and have compassion for others. Yes, primates and other animals have emotions, but I believe being a human being means having a broad range of emotions and the ability to sense others feelings. We are able to express our feelings more deeply. Also, human beings are more accepting of others different them themselves. Animals tend to stick to their kind and usually do not interact with other species. Overall, human beings and primates are very comparable, but humans are more advanced in various aspects.

Highly evolved author

The hype over Ida and the evolution of humans is getting more and more people involved in science which is wonderful. It has now given those who were born to explore (as well as the non-explorer types!) one more thing to research and study! I hope the hype gets us more engrossed in other aspects of science!

For more information on how to be an anthropologist or an explorer read "Born to Explore"