We just wanted to share a crazy story with you from life in Indonesia. Our helper, Dina, got sick this week. How sick? Well, after consulting our trusty Indonesian-English dictionary, apparently she has scurvy. I tell you I didn't learn the Indonesian word for that at language school.
For us it was impossible to imagine. You only need to eat, like, four oranges a year to keep scurvy at bay. So Kari asked if she had been eating any fruits and vegetables. She said no. Kari said, "How long has it been since you ate fruits and vegetables?" Dina said, "Basically never." "Never?" "No, never. Fruits and vegetables are gross, so I never eat them."
They have the cash for it, and we send them home with fruit and veg reasonably often: she just gives it to her kids because she thinks it's gross.
Fruit is so plentiful here it is basically free. Bananas and papayas and oranges and melons and pineapples grow like weeds to the point that they are annoying and you have to dig them out like unwanted poplars.[I am sad to hear about uneducated women, whose lives could be so much better if they had the chance to learn.]
(PS -- She is taking amoxicillin for her scurvy . . . and we are making smoothies: we have her a two pound papaya yesterday and told her to eat it all)
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