We were told the same thing in Italy, between '96 and '99. We were sternly warned to only drink bottled water, brush our teeth with bottled water, use bottled water in any food that wasn't heated to boiling. After I'd been there a bit and befriended a doctor and some other folks who worked at the Naples naval hospital, I learned that "some" local water would fail tests once or twice a year. After considering the odds for a bit, I started drinking the water from the tap when needed. Never got sick from the water.
When I was "in the sand box" for a year, working in one of Saddam's palaces, we got the same warning. There was an Army colonel that I worked with who was a Ranger and thought himself pretty tough. He drank the water in the palace every day. One day I asked if he ever got sick from the water, he laughed and said no. I suffer from years of sun exposure on my Irish skin, and develop pre-cancerous spots on my face, neck and hands which my dermatologist freezes or burns off every year or two. The military dermatologist didn't have the patience I guess, and prescribed a cream for me to apply to my face for two weeks. This cream is basically a very strong chemical peel, "sunburn in a tube" I called it. After the first week of applying this cream, my face was bright red and quite painful. By the second week, it was blistered and really looked awful. During this painful episode, Colonel Ranger asked me one day if I was ok, and what happened to my face. I told him I started following his example, washing my face and drinking water from the palace bathroom. He turned pale and his eyes got big, but I couldn't keep a straight face and started laughing, and told him the real story. I will never forget the look on his face. Max Dillon, Charleston SC _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.