My Mother has Typhoid

My brother called me on Wednesday, he said our mother was ill. She has been ill for a week now. I live in a city, far from the village, so I cannot see her often. My brother says she has a high temperature. She has pain in her tummy, and also a headache. I told them to go to see a doctor.

I called my brother on Friday. I wanted to know if my mother felt better. My brother said, ‘mother has typhoid. She is in bed. She feels tired all the time. Yes, we saw a doctor and she got pills’.

I asked, “what is it? Covid?’

Brother said, ‘no, no, it is not a virus. It is from dirty water.’

‘What? Does she drink dirty water?’

‘You know, in the village sometimes we don’t have water at all, especially before the rainy season. We buy water, but sometimes it is not clean.’

He sent me a photo of the water they drink. It looked dark, not like water to drink. Why is it blue-ish? It looks like water paint in water.

We have a couple of factories in the village, making clothes. They use paints to colour fabrics. This water looks like their waste water.

‘You have to buy bottled water from the shop’, I told him.

‘It is too expensive for us’, he said.

• Have you heard about typhoid?
• Do you know someone who had typhoid?
• How can you recognise this illness?
• Would you drink the water this family buy?