October 14, 2011
It was one of those days, one of those days where everything goes a little bit wrong and you really just want nothing more than a hot shower and a steaming chai to help you forget about life for a little while. It was about 4pm by the time I had gotten home and trudged up the rickety stairs to my third floor apartment. I dropped my overstuffed backpack on the sofa, pulled a pink plastic cup from the cupboard, and went to fill it with water. But when I turned on the faucet, I was met with a strange dry silence. There was no water. I tried the bathroom sink and the shower, but everywhere there was nothing.
One of my roommates came home sweaty from the gym, and we spent a moment pondering the dirty socks and dried-on sweat and everything else that would not be washed until further notice. It was the first time in our young lives that water wasn't immediately available at the quick turn of a wrist. We knew that the building's water had been shut off earlier in the day because a problem needed to be fixed, but it was supposed to have been done long before the sun began painting our windows with fiery hues.
Within minutes, the water was back on but the effects of that brief incident stuck with me. What for me was a few minutes of inconvenience is for many of the world's people a major determining factor in how their lives progress. I'm very lucky that I never had to spend all day seeking water instead of going to school like women often do in India. I'm lucky that I've never had to watch loved ones die from water-borne diseases like people do in many parts of Africa. I'm lucky that I've never had to wonder if and when I would have access to clean, safe water.
As hard as I may try, it's nearly impossible for me to imagine what it must be like to live without water. I consider myself a pretty environmentally-conscious person. I bring my own bag to the grocery store. I don't eat meat, largely for environmental reasons. My friends come to me with recycling questions. But water is my one environmental vice. I know that we are on the verge of a global water crisis, but that seems so distant when I can walk four blocks to one of the largest freshwater sources in the world, Lake Michigan.
Sitting on the docks looking out at the massive expanse of turbulent sapphire water, it's hard to imagine the dire scarcity of water in many parts of the world. Maybe I don't understand well enough how interconnected our water supply is, or maybe it's because water is so readily available that it's impossible to conceptualize having it any other way. That brief incident in my apartment was the first time in my life that I wasn't met with a stream of clear water after turning the knob on a faucet. Although it only lasted a few minutes, it helped me imagine what life must be like for those without easy access to water and made me think even more seriously Americans' role in the oncoming global water crisis.
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