Saturday, August 3, 2013

Brief catch up on Shabbat

Back on the writing wagon: spent most of yesterday writing.  Also did laundry and baked challah.  First time I've baked challah since I've been gone and boy, did it feel good.  And it tasted wonderful.  My host's son and his family (wife, 5 yo son, and 1 yo daughter) came to dinner as well.  There's a furor about polio here.  Kids found carrying the virus (but apparently as carriers) have shown up in southern Israel--looks like the strain originated in Pakistan and appears to be spreading in the sense that more people show up carrying the virus, but no one has the disease, largely due to virtually all of the population having been previously vaccinated.
My host's grandkids have not been vaccinated against polio; her son explained that he is not anti-vaccine, but in this case, figured the problems with the vaccine outweighed the chance of the disease.  Over the past couple of weeks, he's rethought that in light of the outbreak and will be vaccinating his son (but not his daughter?) in the coming week.  Apparently another grandchild, who is 4 months old and does live in southern Israel, is not vaccinated--but (according to them) will be protected because his mother was vaccinated and he is breastfeeding.  Fascinating--and disturbing--conversation.  Comments on the subject welcome!
 With that, I'm off to write...

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