Day 26:

 With WORLD WATER DAY fast approaching… Let’s talk water. We use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning, laundering, and recreation. So what if you had to pump it and carry it? Oh, but on your long hot walk back to your home, don’t take a drink! You should boil it first. If you can afford filters you could do that, or buy bottled water. Or you could put it in a clear container and put it in the sun for six hours to kill all of the cooties. Just gotta find a large clear container. Does anyone know where the Target, Home Depot, or Container Store is Uganda? Anyone? 

These cooties are varied and many. There are bacteria and parasites, and with little to no access to healthcare or medicine, removing the cooties shouldn’t be treated as optional. A common misconception is that the “local” bacteria won’t harm the locals. Just because it doesn’t kill everyone, doesn’t mean it is good for you. They battle all the illness you would expect from these conditions. Sometimes they do lose the battle. A big killer in third world countries is dysentery, and the ensuing dehydration… from drinking lots of bad water. 
 
So how can we keep the plight of others at the fore front of our minds, for at least today? Only get your water from your garden hose in a dirty bucket for the whole day. Though they have to boil their water over open flame and hall their wood and water from much further away than your local garden hose, you will begin to get the idea. Or just go down to the Willamette and stick your face in and drink. Actually don’t do that, just remember why you wouldn’t and that other people don’t have the options you do. 
 
Don’t use your dishwasher. Use your bucket of water. Don’t use the washing machine. Use your bucket of water. Don’t use the shower. Use your bucket of water. Don’t use your bathroom or kitchen sink. Use your bucket. And certainly do not use your filtered water or ice cube maker in the fridge door. Use your bucket. 
 
Recite the reasons you are grateful for your potable water and brainstorm ways to help those without. 
 
Reciting and brainstorming, 
 
Lia 
 
Day 27: 
 
“Muzungus (white people) drink water from the sky, Africans drink water from the ground.”, they tell me. 
 
They were proved right. Last year Show Mercy volunteers created “gutters” out of bent tin, as there was no “Guttershield” outlet within 10,000 miles. The water from the “sky” was redirected to a huge water container at the back of the Children’s Home. This helps a lot during the rainy season with flooding and time spent heading to the well for the day’s many needs for water. 

Does your house have gutters? Do you think they are necessary? Helpful? 
 
There are three other buildings on the property that also need this improvement for the longevity of the buildings, but mostly the safety of the women and children. Am I being a bit dramatic throwing the word “safety” out there? I must tearfully tell you, “No.” It will, of course, be more secure to have most of the water collection happening on the property vs. trips down the road to the well (potential abduction or abuse), but it will save lives (possible and probable accidents). 
 
They have a couple of 55 gallon drums around the property to catch rain water. They are great “Dish Washing” stations. The kids never leave a crumb on their plates, but they go through the motions of dunking the plate in water and scrubbing it with their hands to clean it. Now there is no scent of food to attract bugs when they put it back in their rooms until the next meal. 
 
We had called all of the kids into one room to weigh them so we could medicate them accordingly with “de-wormer”. Jared went to wash his dish before joining us. There was no one left outside but Jared. It hadn’t rained in a couple of days so the rain barrels were low. He leaned way down to reach the water and fell in. He was too small to pull himself back out or tip the barrel over and too big to get flipped around inside the barrel to raise his head above water. We don’t know how long he was in the barrel. 
 
By the grace of God, Margaret ran outside for something and began screaming. Everyone poured outside. Someone pulled him out, but they put him upside down again to get the rest of the water out. Jared began flailing and David, a 22 year old from Albany, Oregon had Jared clinging to his neck. Jared wouldn’t open his eyes, or verbally respond, but he was breathing. He would go back and forth from passing out when held and feeling secure to shear rigid panic when moved away from David’s body. (He would put his arms over his head as if still pushing himself off the bottom of the barrel.) David held him for an hour and a half with no change in his condition. 
 
I don’t know how to describe the emotion of that day, but it might help you to know the trouble I had processing the possibility this would most likely happen again, and probably happens so many times a day, all over the world, when I tell you that my nephew’s name is the same as the boy. They are even about the same age. I still have a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat when I think of that day. 
 
You will be happy to know, there was no permanent damage, as far as we can tell, to Jared. He was running and playing the very next day. We didn’t dodge a bullet, we heard a warning shot. 
 
Can you hear it? Can you help? 
 
Hearing that this American Auntie can’t forget she is also a Ugandan “Ahhntee”, 
 
Lia