World Water Day: Gratitude

Somehow, I heard it over the Super Bowl.

Pshhhhht.

The spigot connecting the hot water to our new washer was spraying water all over the laundry room. A puddle quickly turned into a flood. We used every towel, sheet and bath robe we owned to try to sop up the deluge, but despite our efforts, water soon began to leak downstairs.

In some (very) small way, the leak might have been a blessing: I was too busy mopping up a puddle and googling 24-hour plumbers to see the infamous one-yard-line play call that cost the Seahawks their national title.

At any rate, we spent most of the next 48 hours without any running water, and it took me a frustratingly long time to get a contractor to fix our problem. (“Yes,” I informed way too many people, “no running water with a toddler in the house does constitute a plumbing emergency.”)

We’re back online now, so to speak. The temporary inability to wash dishes, hands, clothes and a toddler who loves to finger paint made me even more grateful for what we too often take for granted: clean, potable, accessible and affordable water.

Sunday was World Water Day, a global event that marks the importance—and scarcity—of clean and accessible water for every human, community and ecosystem. According to the United Nations, “748 million people do not have access to an improved source of drinking water and 2.5 billion do not use an improved sanitation facility.” Unfortunately, untreated water and the lack of hygienic toileting are a major source of disease.

While I was researching witches’ camps in Northern Ghana (definitely a story for another time), I stayed in a house with very basic plumbing. If you wanted to cook, wash your hands, take a shower or flush the toilet, you had to go outside,  pump water into big buckets and try not to spill too much as you lugged them back inside. The care I took with not wasting water put my drought awareness days in California to shame.

Much worse off were the women living in a camp down the road. They had to walk almost a mile to a pond to collect their (somewhat muddy, definitely host to illness) water—then balance the canisters on their head as they carefully walked home. And that was when there actually was water: When I visited, the pond was only ankle-deep and in danger of drying up completely.

Collecting water in Ghana - Ten Thousand Hour Mama IMG_4031There was a public pump not much farther, but only a handful of the 90 or so women I met could afford the pennies it cost to draw water there.

As a result, many of the women I came to know were sick. A handful were taking anti-diarrhea medications, and many more surely had ailments caused by water-borne illness. A few women were too sick or frail to fetch their own water and so relied on the other women to bring them a spare bucket of the precious resource.

The experiences of these women—and countless others like them—starkly contrasts the inconvenience we felt from a busted water spigot. Their plight is one reason I have designated charity: water in my Amazon Smile account, which donates a (teensy tiny) slice of every purchase I make to developing water access projects in developing countries.

Also importantly, we exercise water-saving techniques in our home. We let yellow mellow, fill toilet cisterns with bottles to reduce the amount of water in each flush, use eco settings when we wash clothes and installed low-flow showerheads. Certainly there’s more we could do (and the historic drought in neighboring California is a good reason to further reform our use), and World Water Day is a good reminder of our need to appreciate this life-giving resource.

What do you do to conserve water?

0 thoughts on “World Water Day: Gratitude

    • March 24, 2015 at 7:41 am
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      Absolutely—I need to think on what I’d like to say within the context of this blog. Thanks for the comment!

      Reply
  • March 24, 2015 at 12:50 pm
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    This post took a very different turn than I had expected. One that I didn’t even realize I would appreciate so much. Thanks for the reminder that we have much to be grateful for and still much to improve on. Cheers

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    • March 24, 2015 at 3:03 pm
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      It took a turn for me, too! At first I was frustrated and put out, but in the end, the inconvenience just highlighted how very good we have it.

      Reply
  • March 24, 2015 at 2:01 pm
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    This was a great read! We definitely make an effort to conserve water, but I know we could do more also. Just last weekend my husband fixed two of our three toilets that had been constantly running for several months. I can’t wait to see the difference in our next water bill.

    Thank you for opening my eyes to the situation in Ghana and around the world. It definitely makes me appreciate everything we have by living here. One more thing to be grateful for that is often overlooked.

    Reply
    • March 24, 2015 at 3:08 pm
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      I bet you’ll notice the difference! Maybe even more if you fill up the cistern part way (which is one solution I love because it results in absolutely ZERO inconvenience to you).

      Reply
  • March 24, 2015 at 2:21 pm
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    It is a good reminder. I think about it a lot- anytime I’m guzzling cold water or enjoying a hot shower. I can’t imagine not having clean water and yet there are people that live with out it every day. Breaks my heart. Thanks for the post. The Amazon charity is a cool idea- I didn’t know that about Amazon.

    Reply
    • March 24, 2015 at 3:07 pm
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      Yes, you can designate a charity for Amazon—you just have to buy through their Smile page. (It’s the same except for the url.) Now that I have Prime, I use Amazon a lot, and I’m glad a little part of that money goes to something good.

      Reply
  • March 24, 2015 at 7:04 pm
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    This is the main reason I left home. This and electricity rationing. oh my!

    Reply
  • March 24, 2015 at 9:12 pm
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    I read something similar about the Haitian water difficulties (pre-earthquake), and the resulting malaria outbreaks from un-clean wells. One of the ways nonprofits helped to combat these was the building of new wells and filtration systems, and then they let the locals do the upkeep.

    Of course, that only applies when there actually IS water to go around.

    Reply

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