Walk for Water …

This past week our family had the opportunity to attend Soulfest, a Christian concert festival held in New Hampshire. After a week of camping in the rain and sludging through the mud we were ready to come home and sleep in our own beds.

Above all the concerts and fellowship one event stands as the life changer for me.

On Saturday morning Kendalyn and I had the opportunity to participate in what’s called a “Walk for Water.” Basically, each person carries a 5 gallon bucket one mile out to a river, fills the bucket with water, and carries it one mile back.

The purpose of this activity is to show how difficult it is to carry water even one mile ... yet women and children carry water many more miles everyday all over the world. And often the water they carry, the water it takes most of the day to collect, is not even sanitary enough to bathe in, never mind drink or cook in. Yet it is the water they use for all daily activities.

How much water would I use each day if I had to carry it all even one mile each way to my home?

The average American uses 100 gallons of water each day. 100 gallons of clean and refreshing water. Water we can use for any purpose we wish without a care in the world.

It would have taken me 20 trips on my walk for water in order to carry that much water back on Saturday.

I can tell you now I would not have made it 20 times.

I’m not sure I would have made it 5 times. Let's just say I was sore for days even after just one trip.

At the beginning we were all together, maybe 50 people or so, each of us with our orange 5 gallon bucket. I had to fight for Kendalyn to be able to participate. They tried to tell me she was too young, that maybe we should save the buckets for a “real” walker. After many attempts at being nice, I basically just told them I was taking a bucket for her because she really wanted to do this. Why do people fight with mothers?

So Kenni and I started walking together. Oh yes, and I was carrying Tariku on my back in the backpack.

And then a man with a video camera asked if he could ask us a couple questions.
Oh sure, why not?

So, he casually asked Kenni why she was walking.

And, as if the very voice of God spoke through her, she said, “I’m walking for my brother Tariku and his first mom and her friends.”

And that’s when I lost it. Completely.

I then tried my best to answer his question as to why I walked. I blubbered through some sort of variation of what she had just so eloquently said and we walked on.

The walk out wasn’t so bad. An empty 5 gallon bucket doesn’t really weigh too much. An active 20 month old baby boy on your back is rather heavy, but I’ve done that plenty of times before.

We waited in line at the creek for our water. Knowing that in order to make the exercise realistic I would need to care a substantial amount of water, I asked the man to fill mine as full as he could. Kenni then filled her bucket with about a gallon of water I then dumped her water in my bucket and had him fill hers again. So my bucket was filled to about 3 inches below the top.

5 gallons of water weighs approximately 45 pounds. That seems all well and good until you try and walk with that much water in a bucket. It’s not only heavy, but incredibly awkward, at the same time. And add to that the 20 month old baby boy on my back trying to climb out of his backpack and the tears running down my face ... we were quite the site.

It’s quite the trick just trying to keep all the water in the bucket. If you’re going to walk that far to carry the water you sure as heck don’t want any of it to spill over the sides along the way.

While I was starting to fall behind, Kendalyn was in front of me leading the way and talking to everyone that crossed our path. She was telling them all about how they too should be walking for water rather than merely standing by the sidelines. That’s my girl. :)

Over the course of the mile I had to put my bucket of water down many times. But we both made it to the end ... tired, with sore hands and arm muscles, but we made it. One mile with one bucket of water. Hardly an accomplishment when I think of all the women and children who walk miles each day to carry water home, just to sustain life. Why me? Why them?

I'd challenge you to do some reading. Check out www.globalbenefit.org to find out more about our walk for water, as well as information on people who walk for water everyday.

And one of these days I'm going to organize my own walk for water here in CT.
Anyone want to help me?