Voting Day

Good luck to all my American friends today.

Thanks, MINUSTAH

A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 300 people in Haiti matches strains commonly found in South Asia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

The finding intensifies scrutiny on a United Nations base above a tributary to the Artibonite River that is home to a contingent of recently arrived peacekeepers from Nepal, a South Asian country where cholera is endemic and which saw outbreaks this summer.

It is also a significant step toward answering one of the most important questions about the burgeoning epidemic: How did cholera, a disease never confirmed to have existed in Haiti, suddenly erupt in the vulnerable country’s rural centre?

Speculation among Haitians has increasingly focused on the UN base. The outbreak began among people who live downstream from where the tributary meets the Artibonite and drank from the river. On Friday, hundreds of protesters marched from the nearby city of Mirebalais to demand the Nepalese peacekeepers be sent home.

— "UN base under scrutiny over cholera outbreak in Haiti", The Toronto Star

On the plus side, it's not like MINUSTAH ever cared about how they were perceived by the Haitian people.

Secrets and Parables

I was reading this story today. I think it's full of secrets and parables. It's also cute. But has touches of religiousity, too.

The Monkey who asked for Misery

Monkey was sitting in a tree when a woman walked by on her way to market. Just as she passed, she tripped and the calabash on her head fell of and broke. The sweet sugar-cane syrup in the calabash ran all over the ground.

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— from The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales, collected by Diane Wolkenstein