Hookworm

This afternoon I read in the NYRB of an ongoing housing scandal in an apparently more or less infamous place called Lowndes County in Alabama. A place where there are a lot of black people, a lot of dwellings (houses would be too grand a term for a lot of them) without proper arrangements for sewage disposal and a lot of hookworm, a parasite mostly to be found in poorer parts of the tropics, particularly Africa. According to WHO: 'soil-transmitted helminthiases (STH, also known as intestinal worms) are caused by a group of intestinal parasites comprising Ascaris lumbricoides (roundworms), Trichuris trichiura (whipworms), Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale (hookworms). STH are transmitted by faecal contamination of soil; they adversely affect nutritional status and impair cognitive processes' - and there is lots of it about. But they are both preventable and treatable, given money.

So reference 1 is the article in the NYRB, reference 2 is the subject of the article. Quite a bit of the material in the article looks to have been lifted from reference 3, which appears to be some sort of online newspaper. While our own Guardian was on the case before that.

I would be surprised to learn that there is anything like this in this country, but then, being very small and crowded, virtually everywhere is connected to mains sewage, which is not practical in the wide open spaces of the US. BH certainly never came across hookworm during her time in schools in deprived parts of London. Nits and scabies yes, hookworm no.

Wanting to dig a little deeper, I thought to ask gmaps about the intersection of Highway 80 and Starks Road in Lowndesboro, Alabama, mentioned in reference 3. Which does seem to exist, but appears to be a track more than a road, and the Street View camera man has not ventured down the track. Not that there would have been a great deal of point as as far as I can make out from satellite view there are no houses there - although there are houses scattered about the general area. For example there clearly are houses down the nearby Harriet Tubman Road. (With  Tubman being an abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery in the early 19th century, she went on to live to the ripe old age of 91 or 92).

Which might be a proper road, but the Street View hasn't been down there either. So it does not look as if I am going to get any kind of a virtual tour of the area in question. And in so far as one does get to see the countryside, it all looks rather lush and benign, with lots of trees. I suppose one has to be actually be there when it is either wet or hot - or both - to get a proper feel for the place. In the heart of something called the Black Country, with black soil which is very good for growing cotton - although I have not come across any of that either. There also seem to be a large number of churches for what can only be a fairly scattered population.

However, back on the main road I did turn up a small sign for a place called 'Sexy's Fried Fish'. I follow the sign to the top of Langston Hughes Road, where there is another sign. But guess what. The Street View man has not been down there either. (With Hughes being a poet of the first half of the 20th century).

I try asking both Bing and Google about the place, but they deny all knowledge, turning up all kinds of strange places in its stead. Including the flash place in Berkeley Square here in the UK, to be found at reference 6, which I have noticed from time to time. A place which carries, it seems, a world famous selection of Japanese whisky.

Reference 1: The Stench of American Neglect - Caroline Fraser/NYRB - 2021. 

Reference 2: Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret - Catherine Flowers - 2020.

Reference 3: https://www.theroot.com/lowndes-county-ala-the-place-god-forgot-1825483659. A story from 2018.

Reference 4: https://www.theroot.com/. 'The Blacker the Content the Sweeter the Truth'.

Reference 5: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty. A story from 2017, from the Guardian. A story which I missed at the time.

Reference 6: https://sexyfish.com/.