Day 190

Or, Fetching Water

I really like this picture. Don’t worry, this isn’t some lame self congratulation for an underwhelming photographic achievement. I like it because it captures a moment when it especially struck me that we ain’t in Kansas no mo’, Toto. (Not that we really needed reminders of where we were…) Margaret, the woman who started House of Hope, sent us 4 Americans students to a nearby public school so we could talk to the students about some health topics and get a better pictures of the local community. On the way, we crossed paths with these 2 girls, each no more than 12 years old. They had likely walked many kilometers of unpaved road to bring back water that might, or might not, be safe to drink for their family. I had always heard of people needing to walk far distances for potable water, but something about seeing these girls made an impression on my mind. My immediate reactions were 1. that we were ungrateful punks for complaining about the 30-minute walk to the school (it was hot…) when we weren’t even carrying jugs of water on our backs, and 2. that their lives probably make the lives of most girls their age in the US (my life, even, at the ripe old age of 23) look like complete farce. I couldn’t decide what to do with these thoughts, except to quit complaining about the heat at the moment. Even now, I still don’t really know what to do about reaction numero dos. Maybe sharing this snapshot with you is part of trying to make sense of it all…

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