FEBRUARY 15, 2022 – As I reported previously, every traveler I’d met Down Under who’d passed through India had been stricken with a gastrointestinal disorder. All warned me, traveling the opposite direction, to avoid the “Tropicana Hotel”—a hospital in London specializing in the treatment of tropical diseases—by avoiding Indian ice, tap water, “counterfeit” bottled water, and “sketchy” street food vendors. Their advice came with a universal prediction: Despite all caution, I’d catch some kind of stomach ailment.
And yet . . . among the many miracles of my trip through life is that during the weeks I spent in India, I never got sick. I carried a “magic formula,” but not until my third day in India did I test and trust it.
Meet Ruth Andberg, Doc Andberg’s wife. The Andbergs were family friends in Anoka, and when I was a little kid, I’d been impressed by Mrs. Andberg’s confidence and vocabulary despite what I thought was a severe speech impediment—until Mother explained that no, “Mrs. Andberg is originally from Boston.” While “Doc” (See 8/13/19 and 1/11/22 posts) was off running marathons in world record masters time (and their daughters—friends and classmates of my two older sisters—were raising the bar of high-achievement in school and Girl Scouts), Ruth, a birder of the highest ranking, traveled the world in pursuit of her interest.
When “Doc” learned that I planned to visit India, he told me to talk to Ruth about how to avoid “getting sick.” In her inimitable way, she explained the “magic formula”: iodine crystals.
“Ask Doctah Mahk [Mork] for a prescription,” she said across her kitchen table, as she served me refreshments. “Stah the crystals in a medicine bottle and fill it with watah for a saturated solution. Use one capful of the solution pah litah of drinking watah. Keep the medicine bottle full of watah. You’ll have enough to get yourself around the world.”
I followed her instructions, except that since the water Down Under was perfectly potable, I had no need of the “magic formula” there. Nor did I see a need to fill the small, amber medicine bottle with water—until one day about three weeks into NZ, when I saw that the caustic crystals had eaten a hole right through the hard-plastic cap. To dilute this surprisingly strong effect, I acquired a replacement cap and kept the glass bottle filled with water.
Not until that third, desperate day in India, however, did I put the iodine solution to the test. Just as Ruth Andberg had instructed, I filled my canteen with hotel tap water, then added a capful of the solution. I shook the canteen rigorously and took a swig. The water was awful tasting, but it was water—my first in two days.
I adapted to the taste, and soon I ate and drank indiscriminately. I adhered to the “magic formula” religiously, and surely the iodine was killing all water- and food-borne “nasties” that I ingested. The proof: I never got sick in India.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
