Just Add Water

 

Today's blog is going to be a bit more graphic in detail than some I have posted in the past.  My passion for getting wells placed in the Western Province of Zambia is high.  I have been vocal about the critical need for clean water, drinking water and water to just take a bath.

I was taken back this week when someone read an earlier blog and dismissed the need for water.  However in fairness to this person they have never been without anything.  They did read the blog.  :)

As I have shared in past posts, water is a critical need in most of the world, clean water, pure water, healthy water. I cannot change the world but I can keep the focus on this remote corner of the world.  With out water, education is always derailed.  With out education the cycle of desperation and poverty continue.  This particularly affect the girls.

A subject that is never talked about but plays a major role in the girls becoming educated is when puberty hits.  Girls drop out of school between the ages of 11-13 due to lack sanitary menstrual products, and separate bathroom facilities in their schools.  In the bush outside of Mongu no wells, no water close by, bathrooms at all make it even worse.

She lives in a hut and she has no way to clean herself if water is not available.  If her period arrives on a test day and she cannot keep herself clean she will skip school.  If she is made fun of by the boys in her class for blood on her skirt, the cultural shame is so great, she will not want to return to school.  Without education she remains trapped in poverty.  She is a 'sub-human' and the cycle continues.

She drops out school and is married off for the price of a cow(s).

This is a bathroom for a village hut. 

What do they use?  Rags, grass or anything absorbent is used.  Most of the women in the villages we visit have only the clothes on their backs.  They wear rags as clothing, so material is precious, nothing is tossed away.  But water, water, water is needed to clean up their monthly menstrual flow.  Dirty water, dirty everything!

If you are a woman think about your personal hygiene needs.  Do you have a daughter in puberty or one that will be there one day?  Can you imagine not being able to clean your self or her?    Please focus with me on no water.   Water changes everything, health, sanitation, education and a better life.  Try desperately to put yourself in a desert, as a woman with no clean water.
What would you give to get water? 


Hands of Hope ( www.handsofhope.org ) wants to get wells placed in 10 villages. A village has between 800-1000 people.   Just 10 wells  and 10,000 lives will be changed forever!  10,000 people, just imagine! One well costs $5000.  It is built to last and changes lives with just a pump. 

A well does not have to come from just one person, a well can be born if people  are willing to give say $25 for each of their children, or grand children.  These $25 gifts (or more :) :) ) add up quickly and you will have given life, hope and opportunity to a girl who has none.  

What would you give UP to give water for a daughter, grand daughter, wife, sister just like yours?

Below is a 'good toilet'.  The hole in the ground is cement vs dirt.  This was a 'pay' facility.

The best and only spot in town.

This is a cement hole in the ground.

The American adaptation to keeping clean.

“To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble.”
― Mark Twain  

Let us (me) do both. :) 

http://handsofhopeonline.org/   go on line and give to well.

Give a Well Card in the name of your wife, daughter, sister, grand daughter.

In Water There is Bacteria - Benjaman Franklin

Since I am pretty certain that Benjamin Franklin never visited the Western Provence of Zambia, this quote must have been generated from his understanding of the great need of good, clean water.

Today is Kara's birth date, October 17.  A bitter sweet date.  She came and she is gone.  No one could have ever told me that on this date in 2013, I would be pleading for water, clean water in a most remote part of the world because of her coming into this world.  This date from my perspective should be celebrating her favorite day of the year along side of her.

Kara, a severe diabetic for 15 years taught me the critical need for water, if life is to continue.  A simple swallow of lake water while swimming,  a 'clean lake', put her suppressed immune system into crisis, on the brink of death and in ICU for several days.    She was most blessed to be taken to an incredible hospital (very far from our home), she had team of doctors who fought to keep her alive and medicine to help fight the germs that ravaged her fragile body.

In the Western Provence of Zambia, water is a luxury, clean, fresh water a rare option even during the rainy season.  People bathe, drink, cook and wash in the same stream or bucket.  Germs that cause dysentery, typhoid fever, cholera are in every cup of water that is not taken from a clean well source.  They become too sick to work!  The mom's can't care for their families!  The kids cannot go to school!  The mom's are sick too. They do not have medication to cure the illnesses!  The truly sad reality is that they do not have to drink bad water, we can help.  You can help!


Today's blog is in memory of my daughter Kara Dawn Erickson.  Her life was short but profound.  She taught me many things about life, living and death.  Traveling to Zambia and seeing how hard it is to get water, then harder to get clean water, and realizing that we can do something to help those who cannot help themselves, I snapped.

They must have clean water! 

Kara's legacy for us as a family, will be to get clean water to as many people as we can.  Many parts of the world need water.  However, I am focusing on one tiny, remote corner of the world that most people choose to ignore.  I can monitor where the water goes.  I can see and have seen the health and benefits it brings. I know that every penny raised for a well, will go to a well.  I know a young girl like the one above, does not have to die because of bad water! I have seen first hand, in two short years what clean water will do for a village (800-1000 people) and how it changed their lives!

Hands of Hope (www.handsofhope.org)  wants to place 10 wells by years end.  The people in 10 villages will have a chance to live and thrive.  One simple well costs $5000.  $5.00 per person is all that it costs to keep them with fresh, clean water.  $5.00.  That is one Starbucks drink forgone for another to live.  Giving is that simple.  Would you like to remember a loved one with a well?  Each time one from a village goes to get water they are reminded that someone cared about them.

   I must make this message heard.  These people must be given a chance in life and clean healthy water is where it begins.  To ignore a need, going about the business of life pretending that what

I do does not make a difference, is to live a lie. 

This is water from a new well, 2013!

 Happy Birthday dear, sweet Kara! 
 

Gift someone you love by giving life to another!  http://www.handsofhopeonline.org/giftcards.asp#well