I knew that kids carried 5 gallon buckets on their heads for miles.
I knew it, but i think now, when i think of how i thought of it, that i had the notion that that reality was in little villages in the middle of who knows the hell where.
Here, it is the reality.
When i say here, i mean Africa. I mean that wells sometimes go dry. I mean water trucks that are supposed to fill your tanks dont come; sometimes for months.
When we were in Rwanda our host didnt have water for two months before we came. And now that we are gone, they’re without water again.
Everywhere we drove we passed people carrying yellow jugs, or pushing a whole bike piled and strapped with yellow jugs. They would walk and walk and walk to go get the water – and then have to walk, walk, walk back the way theyd come to take water home or to sell it.
We had to buys some of those jugs too – near the end of our stay or we wouldnt have water to go to bathroom, shower, or even cook or wash dishes.
.
We dont think about it.
We assume and take forgranted that it will be available.
You think you think about it, but i promise you, you don’t.
I say that because i got snuggled by a little boy this morning. He had an IV port taped to his hand, and his little hand trembled on my leg – his head lay over on it, in my lap. He groaned softly.
So softly it was a breath i would have missed if it hadnt been early and people sleeping.
“Are you sick buddy?” I ask rubbing his back.
“Yes,” he whispers hoarsly.
“What kind of sick?” I ask.
“Typhoid,” he answers.
“How do you get that?” I ask.
He pushes himself up and looks at me with eyes swollen with pain. “Bad water,” he says. “That wasnt cooked.” And i can hear the tears threatening to come.
.
We think nothing at all about brushing our teeth from the tap. We even open our mouth in the shower. We drink from any tap anywhere anytime. Pretty much.
I mean i did.
I never worried once in my life that maybe if i drank a cup of water i was given or even just shook someones hand i could get a life threatening illness.
They dont even know how many things they do here that makes me cringe with its lack of sanitation…and yet my knowledge and my carefree life back home makes me wealthy in ways they may never know.
I am wealthy because i lack the kind of fear and worry they cannot escape.
And the water thing? Or lack thereof – It is not some random ass village novelty. It is normal here. Water is hard to come by and not a constant, available thing.
Again, i go to vaccume and am shocked…and though i continue my normal routine, i cannot forget the jolt it gave me.
My favorite color is yellow – and here, yellow means water.
