Two years ago I had a wake up call.
They say things happen for a reason and looking back now it seems that there was always a plan. For some reason on our first family trip to Tanzania I happened to find Jessica Alba's book the Honest Life. I was not looking for anything in the category, I don't even remember how I found it on Amazon. Now the fact that it was written by Jessica Alba was crucial. I don't know if I would've noticed it otherwise, and beyond that the message in that book was simple enough for me to understand and to start applying to my life. She wrote about all the aspects of honest life, living in sustainable way, as chemically free as possible. And she did it nicely, no guilt, no pressure, no "throwoutallyouhaveandbuyallnewstuff".
So when little J over night woke up with a HORRIBLE rash all over his body I already had some data to help me through that chaos. I believe that had I not read that book, I would've just rushed him to the hospital, gotten a load of meds, cortisone, antibiotics etc that might have fixed that situation but I would've still been treating the effect, not the cause. I spent one night with google. I figured out that we had been in Tanzania for about a week and that means our clothes had been washed. With OMO. Now I have nothing against it, except that it makes us all sick, but with J it became pretty much life threatening. You can imagine that in the morning when I announced that ALL of our clothes and sheets and towel have to be washed at least 5 times with REAL soap and vinegar. There is no washing machine at my in-laws. They had to do it by hand. Pole sana. But within two days J was doing ok. He is massively allergic to detergents.
I still struggled with this in Finland, because by the way detergents are everywhere. Our own soaps and bed sheets and towels to day care. Cleaning the house, with soap, but hey you can't use soap for laminate floors, or that there is no detergent free dish soap available in Finland... Trying to visit the best allergy doctors I could get my hands on, only to discover that most lotions have a from of detergent in them. I hate chemistry, and I guess I should've paid attention at school, but all those words in the INCI lists just make my head hurt. He was not feeling better and we tried everything. By the way, after re-introducing the foods, he is not allergic to them at all.
Fast forward we move to Tanzania and lo and behold: he is healthy here. And my hair is curly and my skin (that I have struggle my whole life with) is clearing up. I actually started to wonder that maybe he just grew out of it until my mom came to visit and we took a trip to Zanzibar. I didn't even think to bring our own bedding or towels, that is how healthy he has been. But after a couple of days, his face started to swell, and skin got itchy and then the coughing started again. I am glad that we have been able to reduce the chemicals from his life so well here that he can be healthy, and none of us is exposed to those nasty chemicals.
This has made our life very simple too:
We have laundry soap: a very basic olive oil based soap that we use for laundry, cleaning, dishes etc. I costs about 10 cents a bar. Then we have some beautiful handmade soaps (mainly clove, but some variations) that we use in the shower and I clean my face with. They cost about 30 cents/bar. Then we have vinegar and baking soda, to be used as hair conditioner, or to disinfect or to clean or to shine or to scrub. And then we have coconut oil to moisturize, shave, treat hair, cook etc with. And that's it. All of these can be eaten so what is safer than that.
At the same time we have been slowly turning our closets into more sustainable ones, which is not always easy, living here. My next step is my make up. This is something I can't do here. Organic cosmetics just don't exist here yet, but I am anxiously waiting to our Christmas trip to Finland to replace my make up with non-toxic versions. While at the same time I am terrified to see how J will manage in the land of chemicals :(
I would recommend anyone with constant runny noses, rashes or itchiness or even asthma to take a look and see if it could be caused by detergents. By the way neither T or I can even walk into the detergent section in the shop without sneezing or getting an itchy nose.
It is a headache in the beginning but hey, what wouldn't you do for your child???
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| from sick, always in pain with the torment of itchiness he turned into a happy healthy kiddo!!! |
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