Maker

Tim Anderson

PROBLEM

Tropical diseases spread rapidly and unnecessarily.

This winter I lived in the beautiful town of Jayapura on the north coast of Papua. That’s the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea. Most of the people I met had contracted malaria multiple times. Some had multiple strains simultaneously. My girlfriend and I avoided malaria by taking Malarone, an expensive antimalarial drug. The Indonesian government encourages people to move to Papua from more densely populated islands. They bring customs unknown to the native Papuans, such as defecating in the river and bathing in it, and building houses surrounded with drainage gutters. These gutters contain stagnant water full of mosquitoes. The mosquitoes fly back and forth at night, spreading malaria, dengue, filariasis, etc., from one person to another.

The tidiness of the houses and yards makes it hard to see how hazardous the place really is. When I realized what was going on, I felt trapped and terrified, not to mention my body ached. I had fevers and chills that came and went, and a bright-red blotchy rash all over my body. It turned out that I’d contracted the parasite schistosomiasis (AKA bilharzia) by stepping in a stream of water. I’d barely recovered some strength when my girlfriend, Michelle, came down with dengue. We couldn’t even escape because we’d left our passports with an immigration official to renew our visas; he was hospitalized with cerebral malaria, and no one else in the office could open the safe.

Well, life goes on — as long as you don’t die. A local friend took me to visit a native Papuan stilt village in the harbor. It’s known as “Vietnam Village” because the residents

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don’t allow the police there. It’s clean, but somewhat weathered and impoverished-looking, like most stilt villages. Then the genius of its design hit me….

HEIRLOOM SOLUTION:

Build a saltwater stilt village.

The houses are surrounded by saltwater, so there’s no place for mosquitoes to breed. The Anopheles mosquito that carries Malaria rarely flies more than 100 meters in a night. The village is further than that from any standing, fresh water. There’s a breeze from the ocean that blows any bugs away and keeps the temperature comfortable. Even if dengue mosquitoes could live in saltwater, they wouldn’t enter the houses, because they’re poor fliers and don’t go above about six feet. Few, if any, waterborne diseases are carried by salt water. This was the healthiest place in the city! In fact, healthier than any neighborhood I’d seen in the U.S. The people there live by fishing. The men spend their time working out paddling canoes and fishing, and they consume a fresh, high-protein diet. Many are built like Olympic athletes. It turned out that several were, in fact, Olympic athletes who had won medals in rowing. Their wealth of heirloom technology is impressive. Herbal remedies, giant canoes that carry dozens of people at high speed through rough water, fishing techniques, epic songs about their history with the Dutch queen.... They value their knowledge, and even have ceremonies involving particular herbs to officially pass on a skill or talent to a chosen successor.