Thankful

Things I am thankful for part II :

Clean water.

Here is where the seeds of my gratitude for something I had always taken for granted was planted :

We spent most of our time in Ethiopia in the capital city of Addis. In some ways, a modern city. Bustling, cars honking, vibrant and warm. People milling about and chatting everywhere. I got the assumption if you had any sort of money, you lived in Addis. But on the otherhand, sometimes literally just the other side of the street, there was also the poverty stricken. Streets were lined with tin shacks for homes, no running water. On our trip to the museum, I saw a little child scooping handfuls of dirty water from a puddle on the side of the road, pouring it into his little mouth. It was then I realized water can be a funny thing – you need it to live. Yet, in some places, it can be deadly. When your options are contaminated water or no water, what do you do?

The trip back to Addis from the southern village of Hossana was another moment that will forever be etched into my soul. We drove down a dusty road, people walking around us everywhere. In the road, sides of the roads, everywhere. As we passed by, we realized they were all stopping and seemed to be gathering at a certain spot by a dry creek. Brad asked our driver if it was church (this was a Sunday) – our driver responded “No. They are all looking for water.” Now, I had three bottles of filtered water in my bag which I had hardly touched the entire day, because I was afraid I just may have to pee and was far too western to squat behind some bush. Three bottles of filtered, clean water which I had packed ‘just in case’ – for two people - for a one day long trip. Three bottles that I had only intended on using for drinking. I didn’t need it for cooking or for cleaning, for watering my crops or my livestock, for cleaning wounds or bathing – just purely for drinking just in case I may have gotten thirsty. There was approximately one hundred dusty, thirsty, desperate people gathering around what probably once was a muddy crick, but now was dry. Just gathering. Willing for the water to return. Talking, wondering what to do next. I don’t know how far any one of them had walked, but I can say there was no huts around for quite a while that I saw, so I am guessing it wasn’t a quick jaunt. Heartbroken and ashamed, I think I probably cried most of the rest of the way back to Addis.

1 in 6 people in the world today do not have access to safe water.
4,500 children die every day due to waterborne illnesses.
It would take $10 billion to give the entire world clean, safe water.

Seem like a lot? As Americans, we spend $450 billion on Christmas.

Does your heart hurt as much as mine?

So, I am thankful nearly beyond expression that I live in an area where I do not have to worry the water I give my daughter to drink may be the carrier of the disease that could be her death. This fact was not always so for my daughter – not because her mother did not love her enough, but because that which should be a right, the right of access to clean water, is really just a privilege of the few.

We can change that.

If you would like to help others be thankful and help bring to fruition their right to clean water – please click the water banner on the top of the sidebar. Not just because the village where my daughter spent the first two years of her life and the beautiful country that gave her her nationality, ethnicity, and pride is one of those in desperate need – but because these are people. Just people. And realizing we are members of the privileged, we have the power to ease this injustice, person to person, heart to heart.

Thank you.