The trouble about knowing

Last year, my team and I were in a remote village in Sabah to conduct a writing and photography training for an indigenous community under the United Nations Development Programme's Promotion of Tropical Forest grant. The villagers, mostly poor farmers, were very hospitable to us all throughout our stay. We had our sessions in the day as there was no electricity supply to the village. During the night the old wooden house where we stayed was only lighted by two or three oil lamps, so it was still pretty dim. After the long training sessions we always looked forward to having a nice meal in the evening prepared by the wonderful womenfolk. We had rice, vegetables picked from the forest, fish caught from the river and occassionally wildboar meat from a recent hunt. Something about eating in the dark that simply increased our appetite. And we never mind the stray dogs who always joined in (the house had no doors to keep them out). Except for their smell, we could not see them clearly anyway. We enjoyed dinner time so much that we took our time eating while talking to our hosts for hours mostly about the problems and issues they were facing.

On the third day of our stay, the village headman brought a battery-powered lamp to increase visibility in the house. It was during dinner time. The hall was much brighter no doubt but what we saw instantly spoiled our appetite. The poor dogs had skin disease and one even had what looked like a long piece of thread coming out from its behind. It did not take us long to realise it was a worm! We were still looking forward to dinner time during the rest of our stay but we ate less and as quickly as we could before the dogs would arrive.

Come to ponder about that experience now, I'd say that the light of knowledge can do more harm than good. Well, we know that already, don't we?

But then again, ignorance can be dangerous.

Here's another dog-related story I once read, at least, similar to it.

A group of foreign tourists were on a bus trip to one of the villages in Sabah. The bus broke down on the way and while it was being repaired, the passengers decided to go to a nearby food stall to eat. Although they were not used to the local food served by the shop, they ate anyway as they were starving. Not long afterwards, a skinny dog came. They took pity and threw him some of their food. The dog ate like he had not eaten in weeks.

After the bus was repaired they continued their journey. On they way they saw the same dog lying dead by the roadside. Just before he died the dog vomitted every last meal he just had. Thinking he had died of food poisoning, all the tourists started to get ill. They were rushed to the nearest hospital. The doctor was puzzled as to the cause of their illness after he could not find anything to suggest food poisoning.

The dog was actually hit by a car. He did not die of food poisoning.