Reflections on water

It may be ironic that as I write this it is raining. Rain, what some of the arid or semi–arid regions in the world wouldn’t give for the amount of rain we have had this year, about 9 inches above normal. Those of you who have been following my blog will recall the entries that I wrote in June and July about the flooding on the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

I am not here to write about our abundant rainfall, I am here to write about how my passion for Malawi started. It was about seven months ago and I had started to do background reading and research to familiarize myself with life in southern Malawi. I knew that many people living in less developed regions of the world. I knew that many people in these regions do not have easy access to a clean and accessible water supply near their dwelling. I knew of the various diseases transmitted by dirty water. I knew that the people of these regions were very, very poor. Somehow all this seemed so far away. Up until last spring when I started writing about southern Malawi

It would be arrogant of me to sit here on the east coast of the United States to say that a few months of reading and writing about the people of rural southern Malawi translate into really knowing what life is like for these wonderful people. I can not, even if I should get a chance to go and visit with these wonderful people some time in the future.

But I can have compassion. And I can use the gift of my electronic pen to write of the compassion I have for and how writing about southern Malawi has, I hoped, helped me to not take things for granted. Like the well on my property that supplies us with clean water.

It was around the end of April, and I was taking a break from my research on Malawi. I started to think about what I might or might not plant in my garden in the middle of May after the threat of a freeze had passed. Believe it or not, we were then in our third consecutive month of below average rainfall. I was wondering if we were headed for a dry summer. I wondered whether I should set in new plants or not. I decided not to, to wait awhile.

Suddenly, I thought back to the people in the village in rural southern Malawi that I was writing about. The “problems” of a dry spring seemed suddenly so trivial and unimportant. I thought to myself, what is the worse that could happen if we did have a drought that summer, some of my plants and trees might die. Perhaps we would have to dig a deeper well. But we wouldn’t get sick from drinking dirty water. We don’t have to walk for an hour one–way and wait in a long line at the crack of dawn to get a bucket of water to last the day.

I know that these words sound trite and some of you may be shaking your heads, saying, “Give me a break!” You probably have a point, for I am an expert at what I can white liberal guilt. All I can say is that, suddenly, I began to look at my own use of water differently. And perhaps I can use my “white liberal guilt” for some good, through my writing.

And a few weeks later the rains came.