Agua

Phoenix, Arizona. One of the hottest places in the US. It's July 15th. Why visit Phoenix in July? My sister and brother-in-law live in central Phoenix and just had a baby girl, Tessa. She's adorable and I am not at all biased.

Yesterday I woke up and checked the temperature at 8 am. 98 degrees. I wanted to go for a run and thought well at least it's under 100. The high for the day was predicted to be 110 and today 115 degrees. The news had little blurbs about drinking enough water especially if you are out exercising. So I drank a few glasses of water and headed out the door. I told my sister that I would probably be back sooner than later.

It felt hot, but not horrible. In fact, I felt pretty good. Not many people were out exercising, just a few. I ran through the neighborhood and towards Camelback Mountain. I was hoping to do some speed work, so I decided if there was any shade, I would attempt to sprint for a block or so. I did, but of course there really wasn't that much shade. As I ran, the heat started to slow me down and the attempts to sprint ceased. Not a good day for speed work. After about 30 minutes, I jogged back to the house. All I wanted was a cold glass of water. I went inside, went to the cupboard, pulled out a glass, filled it with water, and drank it down. And then repeated the process. I wanted cold water, and I got it within a matter of seconds.

When I was living in the DR, I began to drink a lot of water. If I wouldn't, I would get really bad headaches. We would buy three botellons of water (like the Culligan bottles) about once a week and haul them up three flights of stairs. At first, I didn't really like changing the bottles because a third of the water would end up on me or on the counter as I changed it, but after some practice I got good at it. Drinking water wasn't just available in the faucet like many of us are used to. Neither was water always available for showering or for flushing the toilet. There would be times where we had to fill water into buckets for showering or go without a shower, or wait several hours for the water to come back on. After a three day hiking trip, all I wanted to do was to take a shower. But alas, the water was not on when we got back, so the shower had to wait. Another time the owner of our apartment building decided to shut all the water off in all the apartments so that everyone would come to a meeting. It worked. Most people showed up and after the meeting, the water was turned back on.

Water, no one can survive long without it.

Did you know:

884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people.

The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

More people in the world have cell phones than access to a toilet.

n the developing world, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water.

At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more school attendance days a year. The value of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, would amount to US$ 3.6 billion a year.

(Information taken from water.org)

We use water numerous times each day. We all need it, but it doesn't seem fair that many people do not have access to it. If you would like to help, contact Kari or I. We run for Africa!