Blog Action Day: Water

It’s Blog Action Day. The theme this year is WATER. My blogging buddy Damaria Senne of South Africa has written an insightful post on her blog Story Pot about water in an African village.

I told her that:

Your story of the place water plays in the lives of village people all across Africa is moving to me. Your span of options to obtain water–and it’s social function as well–give important education to those whose lives have been radically more privileged.

When I was in Botswana and Ghana in the 1970s for five years, I learned to head-carry water from communal taps, and the river. I could never manage to carry with no hands; I always had to support my bucket with one hand. The grace of women and children who did head carry their water continues to amaze me.

Clean, safe water is arguably the most basic need of any society. Unless we have that we can never have sustainable societies throughout the world. We can never halt the unnecessary deaths at all ages from diseases that could have been prevented. Even boiling unsafe water does not erase that risk.