Big sister
Via Edna Adan University Hospital on Facebook:
Generosity means sharing the last drops of water with your baby sister during the ongoing drought in Somaliland…
Only about one-third of the Somaliland population has access to safe drinking water. In recent months, devastating drought exacerbated by El Nino weather patterns has left over 240,000 of our people without enough food and killed 35% to 40% of our country’s precious livestock.
For this little girl, her sister, and all of us, #WaterGives life. Health and hope depend on it. #WorldWaterDay
As I look at that picture, I’m reminded of the one I took of my young granddaughters last week, the older sharing with the younger – and the knowledge that in this soggy country of ours there is no chance that they’ll ever be without safe water. OK, so mismanagement of the infrastructure means that they’ve been living under a boil water notice for much of the last months, but they’ll never thirst. Where I live, we have a well that we can be confident won’t run dry in the next several generations.
It breaks my heart to see those two little girls above, and know that their parents must be terrified that their daughters are at high risk of tragedy.
That’s a powerful image of love.
This is a powerful argument for making water a right, and insisting that everyone have access to it – and not wasting the precious stuff watering plush lawns in rich countries!
Well, we certainly shouldn’t be wasting so much, but given transportation issues, I think we’d more effectively build desalination plants or condensation collectors to help dry places.