Whenever I travelled abroad to faraway places and had to watch how thoughtless and ignorant some people were in treating their surroundings, I felt pride in knowing that tidiness prevailed in my native land. Such actions upset and often repulsed me, and I would never have thought it possible for things to change so much in my own country. I vividly remember an incident in Central America where I saw a stream full of rubbish and dead animals. The same contaminated water flowed downstream and was used to irrigate gardens, for people to bathe and wash their clothes in; it was even used in their kitchens. Maybe the natives were tougher there, but they nevertheless suffered from infections on an epidemic scale, as I saw for myself. The blatant lack of hygiene among people living in such conditions, has led to rampant infestation with worms, so that in certain areas all the inhabitants can be infected with intestinal worms and amoebas. The authorities care little or not at all about taking the necessary precautions, even though such unhygienic conditions are responsible for damage to health, and can even contribute to a slow death.
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