Water

So I have been living in South Africa for two weeks as of tomorrow, which sounds like a long time until I think about that I only have 8 weeks left. In those eight weeks I have to visit Cape Town, go on a safari, play with baby lions, oh and do an analysis on ten country offices for Habitat. The big part of the project gets going in the beginning of August when I visit the Ugandan and Malawi (or "real Africa" as everyone here has told me) national offices to implement my survey, talk to partners, and visit build sites. Since my survey is written and in the editing process, I am currently working on some other internal research stuff for the Orphans and Vulnerable Groups (OVG) project. We are in the process of grant shopping and really interested in a grant that incorporates Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) into the communities where we are building. The past two days have made me realize my love/hate relationship currently with water.

My task was to do some quick Best Practice research on WASH and figure out how to make past projects Habitat friendly. So for those of you that didn't read about 2947385103 pages of info, here are some things I learned about WASH:

• 884 million people in the world don't have access to piped or some type of well water
• 2.6 billion people don't have access to improved sanitation (improved sanitation means there is hygienic separation between human contact and waste) 
• Clean water and good hygiene can reduce the spread of disease and mortality rates
• Only 31% of sub-Saharan Africa has access to improved sanitation 
• 1.7 million people in the US don't have access to plumbing in their household
• it is unbelievably important to wash your hands, don't be gross

(See this cute little girl washes her hands..I borrowed this picture from UNICEF btw)

The love: Tourists, ex-pats, and even some South Africans have really weird phobias about water here. They are convinced that they are going to get "a belly full of worms" (you are welcome Class 7). It is safe to drink out of the tap here and our office has a purified water cooler, so I'm not exactly brushing my teeth with Dasani.. until I go to "real Africa". Reading about WASH made me really thirsty, really sad, and really thankful. I have been almost in tears when my approximate 4 minutes of hot water runs out in the morning, but I'm also not walking hours, sharing an outhouse with 10 other families, or part of the 1.7 million Americans without plumbing. Perspective always wins.

The hate: My refrigerator left a nice big pool of water in the kitchen..I'm calling it "the great flood of Craig Park"

If my rant touched a soft spot in your heart, you can donate to Habitat or organizations like water.org that are doing cool stuff to alleviate water issues around the globe. Mark your calendars because March 22nd is World Water Day!