What Makes You Most Happy? Clean Water or Your iPhone?
Posted 10 years ago - May 1, 2015
From: Wally
Today was such a cool day and yet so frustrating to me. We went out to a drill rig to see a new well being dug. (My honey even got to help!) The really neat part is that, not only will a community get to use this, but it’s been placed right next to a school that was built in 2001.
The frustrating thing is that just 200 feet from the school, you can see a cell tower. Now why would a cell tower be built before a well that gives access to safe water?
I don’t have the answer to that but I do know the joy the school feels. The kids return from a break in about two weeks. Their headmaster was there today and said “Imagine their excitement to know that, finally, they have access to safe water!”
This means better health, which in turn allows them a better education simply because they aren’t being sent home sick all the time. Or, even worse, the entire school has been shut down before for extended periods because so many children were ill.
We take water for granted in the U.S. I think most of us don’t understand the ramifications of unsafe water and just how deadly it actually is to us. Imagine how much you would freak out if you ordered water at a restaurant and this is how it came.
In Zambia, four children under the age of 5 die every 15 minutes due to preventable water-borne diseases. A common practice in many areas of Africa is to not give your newborn a name until they reach the age of 5. Can you imagine NOT naming your baby because you don’t know if they will even survive?!
That’s why these wells are so important. They not only bring clean water, they give life. I’m excited to see how many lives we can change through next week’s Drill It and Fill It campaign with Blood Water Mission.
By Mardi
Wally's Wife :)
The frustrating thing is that just 200 feet from the school, you can see a cell tower. Now why would a cell tower be built before a well that gives access to safe water?
I don’t have the answer to that but I do know the joy the school feels. The kids return from a break in about two weeks. Their headmaster was there today and said “Imagine their excitement to know that, finally, they have access to safe water!”
This means better health, which in turn allows them a better education simply because they aren’t being sent home sick all the time. Or, even worse, the entire school has been shut down before for extended periods because so many children were ill.
We take water for granted in the U.S. I think most of us don’t understand the ramifications of unsafe water and just how deadly it actually is to us. Imagine how much you would freak out if you ordered water at a restaurant and this is how it came.
In Zambia, four children under the age of 5 die every 15 minutes due to preventable water-borne diseases. A common practice in many areas of Africa is to not give your newborn a name until they reach the age of 5. Can you imagine NOT naming your baby because you don’t know if they will even survive?!
That’s why these wells are so important. They not only bring clean water, they give life. I’m excited to see how many lives we can change through next week’s Drill It and Fill It campaign with Blood Water Mission.
By Mardi
Wally's Wife :)
