what to do about water...

Water has been on my mind lately. And those of you who know me well know that I haven't always been great about actually drinking it. It's just not something I think about often. I haven't had to. And yet, whenever I've wanted water, it's been right there waiting for me. Easily accessible, without a thought nearly my entire life.

Life in Latin America has made me much more aware of water. The heat demands it, the faucet often unexpectedly fails to dispense it in the city, and the lacking resources in the country make it tough to find and too dirty to drink. 1 in 6 people globally do not have clean drinking water. Families that have taken me in and generously shared their homes with me, walk miles to get water and carry it home, use it scarcely and respectfully and still, tragically, in the last few years, they have watched their children die of diseases caused by dirty drinking water.


Earlier this year a friend recommended the documentary FLOW: For the Love of Water, to me and watching it changed the urgency with which I think about water. (http://www.flowthefilm.com/trailer) The scarcity is scary, absolutely. But what's more frightening to me, is the ease with which we're letting companies bottle and sell us something we can drink for next to nothing from our faucets. That's scary in a country with resources, and even more so in countries where expendable incomes are something known only among the elites.

As I was looking around for different facts about water today I went to google and was less than thrilled to be reminded about our little $79 million moon-bombing to look for water there. I just don't get. Not at all. Am I way out of line to feel that we should start taking care of water sources here on Earth first? That we should start claiming our Earthly water sources for people and nations and thirsty populations before large corporations buy, pollute and exploit them?

After a visit from my family here and their wonderfully relentless asking 'what can we do about it all?' I've been thinking about how to give more ideas for action and hope here in this little blog space I call my own. Of course these are always just suggestions, and I'll hope you'll keep reading even if not moved to action, but I know that being witness to life in a third world country is both a privilege and a responsibility. I personally need to remember that I am connected to people of other nations. That I can affect their lives positively. Probably not as much as I'd like to, but who doesn't need water? This is one sustainable, tangible, easy way we can improve people's quality of life.

A few ideas:

Those of us privileged enough to have regulated, drinkable tap water, should drink tap water, and encouraging our local and state governments to protect it and the water sources in our home states.

Educate yourself about water!
- Watch FLOW (Rent it or search for it online, many documentary sites provide free links)
- Read one of the many books out there bringing this issue to light: Blue Gold, Bottlemania, etc...

Donate to organizations helping abroad:

charity: water - building wells in Africa to bring clean water to entire communities

Potters for Peace - Helps potters around the world set up facilities to produce and sell water filters to families that don't have access to an uncontaminated well or other clean water source. The filters are low-tech, low-cost ($15-25), and effectively eliminates 99.88% of most water-born diseases.

"The banks of a river may belong to one man or one industry or one State, but the waters which flow between the banks should belong to all the people."

-LBJ, 1965 when singing the Clean Water Act

fascinated with family...

It's been nearly a week since my family headed out from their week long visit to Nicaragua. And still, at least one person a day asks me how the visit went - I guess I mentioned it to a few people! It's fabulous to be able to say that we had a wonderful week and that I'm continually reminded of how fortunate I am to have family like them.

It went ridiculously fast, as expected and after a day in colonial Nicaragua, a day at the lake, time in Managua, a visit to an ocean resort and an interesting (rainy) day on a nearby mountain with friends...they were hugging me goodbye. And suddenly I was no long surrounded by this group of people who somehow manage to make me feel more me than nearly anyone else can.

They left and I laid down and cried - sad to see them go of course, but also overwhelmingly grateful. To have a family that affirms the decisions I've made and the things I love by coming all the way here to see them, to laugh and love through it, and to remain so entirely open to the experience and whatever it might gift them...well, I think that's remarkable. I think I'm remarkably blessed.

give us roses...

"Hearts can starve as well as bodies, give us bread, and give us roses!"

- Utah Philips, Ani de Franco

Amid packing, and final projects and an intense Yankees game, we're wrapping up the program in El Salvador. This last week has involved chances to speak with different organizations working with women's issues, the environment and neoliberalism. I've learned a great deal - and would love to write about some of those things (perhaps I will a bit later) but tonight I'm just signing in to say that it hasn't all been heavy.

We've made time for a bit of fun - we got to go to a futbol game last week (El Sal v. Honduras - Honduras won and qualified for the World Cup) and bowling in a pre-celebration for a student's birthday. And, I am blessed enough to have a great deal to look forward to - my family arrives in Nicaragua in a few short days! I get to spend my vacation soaking in their presence and showing them around country that has become very important to me. Amid all of the weight of the issues among us and the change that's necessary - I'm grateful to have moments to lighten things a little, moments of hope with speakers, moments to remember all of the good that continues to bless me.

were you there?

I've done this semester trip a few times already; so I've been through most of the activities once or twice. And while I don't get bored - this does afford me a sort of luxury in being able to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for certain activities.

Yesterday I knew, as we took the boat across the lake, that we were headed toward a massacre site. I knew that while sitting there in that sacred place, we would listen to a difficult testimony. Testimony of a man who was just a boy when he watched an unjust, bloody attack by the army take the lives of his entire family and another 100-some people from his community.

His community had been persecuted by the government army because of the suspicion of a 'guerrilla presence'. During one foreseen attack the majority of the civilians had escaped across the lake, but returned too soon, before the army had gone entirely, and they were seen at the banks of the lake. And here begins his story, running down the hill, watching rolling boulders smash other children, watching his parents, his siblings, aunts and uncles get shot and fall into the water, watching body parts of the people escaping in boats be severed and strewn through the air by grenades viciously hurled. And as if this red mess at the shore weren't enough, they marched the survivors through another three days of torture. All the time telling them that they were headed toward the capital and then, at the end, raping and killing the girls and dividing the remaining people into three groups and killing each in a distinctly cruel way.

His story is long, and it wasn't the first time I had heard it. I watched the ants and centipedes and all variety of bugs crawl past me and under me and I broke twigs and kept my hands busy throughout. He did the same, ringing his hands, placing them on his hips, crossing and uncrossing his arms, constantly moving but somehow much calmer this time than the last. He has said before that the telling of his story is difficult, but shedding light on such an extreme reality is important and for him, healing.

I sat there and wondered how it was that I wasn't crying as I listened to the first hand testimony of a man who was 9 years old when he watched his entire family be brutally killed, while he watched a man get hung from a tree and beat to death as if he were a pinata, when he watched dogs and vultures eat the raped, assassinated bodies of the young women with whom he had spent his childhood. Of the three times that I had heard it, never had I cried. Until yesterday.

Our professor had requested that our Olaf student, a violin player, bring her instrument and play a benediction of sorts. She stood up after nearly 2 hours of testimony and with a few lines from three, perfectly chosen hymns, she beautifully embodied the pain and bewilderment, the hope and commitment of the moment.

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" was the first one, and as soon as I heard it, I couldn't help but weep. Hymns can be so powerful and this music is just so much a part of the base of my faith. A faith that has changed and grown and begun to encompass a world full of extreme hurt and beauty. This month has truly pushed me to look for the divine in people, to serve God by serving 'the least of these' to see our 'suffering servant' in the poor, the oppressed. And talk about new light being shed on old theology: I was sitting there where they crucified so many, where they crucified my Lord. And that question had never felt so personal, so pertinent, so demanding. How could one not tremble at the thought of it all?

I am here where so many are being crucified. The armed conflict was terrible, but in many ways, things continue on the same. Gang violence and hunger, unjust economic policy and brutal assassinations on the immigration path to the United States continue to rob these people of life and the opportunities that my 'higher power' has clearly stated belong to all. ALL.

And last night, I laid in bed and listened to the little boys in my homestay (the nephews of the man who gave testimony that morning) giggle as they recited their own versions of the Lord's Prayer. I was reminded of a piece of our professor's re-written 'People's Prayer':

"Forgive our giving up, our fixation on being
comfortable and powerful...
Forgive our inability to see beyond our street and experience,
thereby denying the lives lived by others
and denying the power and complexity that is you.
We have trespassed on your fullness,
your design, your sacred spaces.

Your voice cries in pain with ours,
will not remain Silent in the
face of injustice, will not let violence strip
Love from Life.

For you are the Creatrix,
the season-changer, the maker of snow,
the center of hope, a Spectrum of Aliveness. "

like any other moment....

"Liberation theology isn't just 'of a moment' but since bible times, since there have been believers, there has always been a theology with liberation at its base. This moment may not be the biggest or most critical moment in time; but still - like any other moment in history - the social structure has to change. And maybe it will always be that way. As a result, liberation theology has something to say about current issues; liberation theology will always be relevant."

- Jesuit priest and professor in El Salvador

for they shall inherit the moon...

"It's official: we're bombing the moon" - my coworker Chepe

So I looked it up, and he's right. Scheduled to happen tomorrow - and why not? Crash something into the moon to see if we can find water. And who is this water for? Potential, future, moon-dwellers it seems. Now, I am fully aware that I am not a scientist, and probably don't even realize all of the ways that I benefit from technology developed, in part, by discoveries made by NASA.

But even so, even if that is the case, over the course of the last year, I have met plenty of people who don't even benefit from the luxury of clean water. Over the last year I've seen levels of people living in conditions I couldn't previously imagine. Those of you who have been reading for a while may remember my visit to the Acahualinca dump in Nicaragua. (see post: trash, Dec 2008). This breaking news brought a poem to mind; about the moon and the people of Acahualinca, Nicaragua. It's long, but an interesting commentary, so I'll post parts of it below.

Really? We can't figure out how to get water to all the people that need it here on Earth, but we can start bombing the moon to see if there might possibly be some for potential, future dwellers?

The Earth is a Satellite of the Moon

Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1

Apollo 1 cost plenty.

Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2

Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1

Apollo 1 cost plenty...

Apollo 8 cost a fortune, but no one minded

because the astronauts were Protestant

they read the bible from the moon

astounding and delighting every Christian

and on their return Pope Paul VI gave them his blessing.

Apollo 9 cost more than all these put together

including Apollo 1 which cost plenty.

The parents of the people of Acahualinca were less hungry than the children of the people there.

The parents died of hunger.

The people of the Acahualinca are less hungry than the children of the people there.

The children of the people of Acahualinca, because of hunger, are not born

they hunger to be born, only to die of hunger.

Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the moon.

- Leonel Rugama

a bride...

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.


When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

- Mary Oliver