Here are some of the things I carried:
In the kitchen: “Optimus” gasoline stove and 1 quart metal container for gasoline (You can buy standard motor gasoline, “petrol”, almost everywhere on earth, but not specialized cooker fuels.), two-quart water container, lightweight “unbreakable” cup, bowl, spoon and fork. (My Swiss Army pocket-knife with its practical tools stayed in my pants pocket.), sharpening stone for the knife, one-quart bail handled cooking pot with lid, small tea-pot and several plastic containers for food, matches, etc.
Also in the bathroom:
Doctor Tree’s Medicine Chest:
For diarrhoea: Streptomagma, Lomotil or Paregoric (blood or mucous show means it’s amoebic: see someone for shots!).
Malaria prevention: Chloroquinine (250 mg pill weekly) or Primaquinine (daily pill).
Water purification: Iodine (tablets or fluid) but best is to boil the daylights out of the water (at least fifteen minutes of rapid boiling!).
Other medical needs: Vaseline (good for so many things!), mosquito repellent, adhesive tape or “Band-Aids”.
(Health tips for the traveler):
Always wear shoes (Especially in West Africa where soil parasites can bore right through the skin of your feet and get into your bloodstream!).
In many countries helpful or necessary drugs can be purchased at a pharmacy without a prescription if you know the chemical name of what you need.
If the food you eat is steaming hot, the harmful bacteria on it may be weakened enough not make you very sick!
To cure most illnesses, you don’t need a medical doctor. Just think of what you have done or are doing and change your life-style until you are better. Sometimes it takes just as long to heal yourself as it has taken to make yourself sick!
If you are hurting, don’t concentrate on the pain, concentrate on something else and you may forget the pain!
If you are in a place where sickness is rampant, leave, because health, like sickness, is contagious—stay around healthy, happy people! Avoid complainers and sickness addicts!
Practice some Hatha Yoga. You’ll never regret it! (You can learn all you need out of a book. Don’t waste your money on “power yoga” lessons or that kind of commercial nonsense!)
Whenever possible, avoid breathing polluted air, drinking polluted liquids, eating polluted food or thinking whatever you think are polluted thoughts!
Health insurance: whatever policy you are paying for probably won’t work anywhere except in the most westernised of western countries. Socialistic countries will probably give you free minimal health care even if you are not a citizen just to get rid of you. Don’t be a fool. Take care of yourself!
I never had any health insurance during my earthprobe and when people would ask me, since I had no health insurance, what happened when I got sick I would always say: “I feel terrible until I get well!”
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