For those of us who grew up in Western Kansas, the flat, dry prairie, water is a complicated issue. We vacation at lakes and at the ocean and marvel at how much of it there is. Then, we go back home and turn on irrigation wells, sprinklers, and take long, hot showers, because to us, clean water from the seemingly endless supply in the Ogallalla Aquifer is our right as much as the air we breathe.
Sticky mud under rustling corn plants, tassels high above our heads, the legend that if you stand in the middle of a field and hold your breath and make no sound, you can hear the corn grow. Running through it in large-scale games of hide and seek, arms shielding our faces, yet still emerging with red lines across our faces where the sharp edges of the leaves slashed us. Laying irrigation pipe. Corn-fed cattle, the benchmark for the last 20 years of quality beef. It all takes water- enormous water. Market glut because of overproduction. The price of grain. And most recently, the introduction of chemfallow farming practices, which allows for dryland crops but infuses our food with even more substances for the chemical-savy consumer, those who are willing to pay more for food grown without chemicals of any kind, to be aware of. It all goes back to water- water that used to run in creeks and rivers, cutting through limestone beds, carrying and depositing rich, black soil. The Smoky Hill River, once miles wide, now only runs sporadically on wet years. We dig in the limestone bluffs and uncover fantastic sea creatures, 25 foot-long fish who's bones have turned to stone, a shark's tooth here, a partial tail fin there, and we marvel that it was once all under water, and unless we are the curious type and believe the scientists, geologists and paleontologists, that it was an ocean until the uplift of the Rockies, we marvel at the havoc Noah's flood left behind. The signs of water are everywhere but the water itself has retreated underground, and like an opaque pitcher, we will just keep pouring, never believing we are to the last drop, until the water stops coming out. The Ogallalla is not refilling as quickly as we are draining it. That much is proven. But yet it remains, in the minds of many, a myth, like the myth of global warming and the myth that our beaches are turning to plastic and the myth that petroleum products are silently killing us.
I hesitate to reveal the side of me most likely to be labelled as a radical. But some causes are worth it. Landfills have become my personal pet rant, because they are the most obvious sign of the way we as a society have stopped caring. So much waste. Have we really evolved so much from our hunting and gathering ancestors that we now blatantly disregard their mantra, "waste not"? But there I go, on my landfill rant. We could live on a pile of trash and be quite a functioning society if we all had access to the juice that makes us go- water. We were raised in the land of plenty, as much as we like to make it sound as though we have it rough. We have water. We have food. We have any opportunity we want, and let's just take a look back at how we got there.
Grandma Chris once repeated a conversation she had with a local old timer. They were discussing which of the modern conveniences was the most useful to them. Microwave? Electric light? Cars? No, the old timer said, shaking her head. The thing that most simplified her life was running water. Grandma admitted she had taken that one for granted, but it was true- without running water, one's life consisted of carrying it- carrying it to cook, carrying it to clean, carrying it to drink, carrying it to bathe, carrying it until one's spine was permanently bent from the weight, one hip was higher than the other, one shoulder slumped more. One had to boil it to prevent sickness. A woman's entire life was spent in the pursuit of water, and most settlers even had a well in their yard. When running water became available, women began to demand equality. They had the time to raise children properly, cook in sanitary kitchens, learn to read. We got readily available water, and our evolution as a society speeded up.
And now, we sit here in our comfy cotton shirt that took 400 gallons to grow from a seed to a tee-shirt, in our faded, favorite blue jeans that took 1,800 gallons to grow and produce, munching on Doritos that come straight from the Ogallalla, and we chose to ignore that just over the pond, where we could be if we had not been so fortunate to have been born in a water-rich country, people are dying. We think we are unlucky because we bought a lemon car or got a flat tire or hate our job, but to them, we win the lottery every time we wake up, take a shower, and fill the coffeepot. They are stuck in the same time period as our pioneer ancestors, spending hours, weeks, years of their life wearing a trail to the nearest water source. They are raped and beaten as they walk a predictable path every day. They have no time for reading, no time for self-improvement or learning. They are carrying the water back in old plastic gas cans, bending young spines, crippling young knees and hips. And when they lift it to their lips, it is liquid death- murky and filled with bacteria and disease, and parasites that cause malnourishment that impairs a child's ability to learn and develop like the healthy, hell-raising kids on our street.
One well. That's all it takes. One well for a village to begin to heal itself. One well to provide young mothers with access to clean water, water for washing her hands and drinking and feeding her children, for the time it takes to stop by a classroom, pick up a pencil, and make her mark. One well with water that comes up clean and clear from underground. We have had such luxuries for years. Why is it we can't share just a bit of ourselves?
I have stumbled across the mindset, as we sit in our luxury, of wondering why we should help those who won't help themselves, or of caring and understanding, but being so overwhelmed by the help that is needed that we find ourselves ignoring it. We wonder why they cannot dig their own wells. Why they cannot take charge of their own lives. Why they can't stop fighting each other with machetes long enough to create solutions for the fact that their kids are starving. We feel for the pot-bellied, undernourished, dirty orphans, but we assume that once that orphan survives to adulthood, he should learn to become self sufficient, so we send our feel-good donation of $1.00 per day to the orphan, whom we know is helpless and who is used by charity organizations to wrench our emotions, so that when we give we can feel less haunted by muddy tear tracks and bloodshot eyes in an ebony face too small for them. Which is good. But it isn't enough. They need something that is free to most of us- water.
Do we honestly think that we could do better than the adults in these villages? We have institutions for people who grew up with less hardship. We don't give them shovels and tell them where to dig. And we don't take them the Good News of the Gospel while they are vomiting because of the mud puddle they drank out of that morning. I must say, I am a bit miffed by those who call themselves missionaries. There should be not be a distinction between missionaries and humanitarians, there should only be humanitarians on missions. There is no greater statement of love, the love we are so eager to tell about, than feeding, clothing, bringing water to the thirsty. And believe me, I am feeling like a small, mean little person as I write this. I am not writing from a position of do-as-I-do, but from one of I-know-what-is-needed-if-only-I-weren't-so-selfish.
I won't provide you with links to charity sites. That is up to you. According to an online search, an average well project by Charity:water costs $5000 dollars and provides clean water for 250 people. That's a splurge purchase for many of us- a motorcycle, a camper, a snowmobile, a high-end mountain bike, a car with over 150,000miles on it, a bathroom remodel, granite countertops.
If 250 people were framed and ended up on death row in a federal penitentiary through no fault of their own, and I knew they were innocent, and all it took to free all 250 of them was $5000, I get out my checkbook. I'd call everyone I know. I'd work around the clock, overtime and a second and third job to keep them out of the electric chair. I wouldn't be above selling drugs or a kidney to get the money on time. I would pull all the strings and tug all the heartstrings I could to free them and somehow, I would get the money. I would not rest until they were free to live their lives again.
Great insight, Susan. There's so much more we all could do.
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