Recent post I wrote for Blood:Water.

“On paper it looked like a fairly straight forward itinerary;  7 days in Kenya’s desert north visiting some of the more remote communities Blood:Water has partnered with over the last several years.  In retrospect, it’s hard to really decide what the most exciting part of the trip was: driving through a half-mile flood plain in the black of night before burying the land cruiser in a river; waking up to discover hyena tracks near our tents… ”

Read more on the BWM Website…

The water is clean, but the container is not. Piped in by gravity flow from over 20 miles away, this water has traveled far to get here only to be recontaminated in the very final stage before drinking. Containers like these were championed by government and large aid agencies as being better than open containers – the logic being that containers with a lid reduce the risk of re-contamination. That may be true, but only if you can fit your hand inside to scrub them clean on a regular basis.  Put a nice container like this in a dark, cool hut in the humid tropics and you have a near perfect breeding ground for bacteria, mold, and algae.  A very high percentage of containers I’ve inspected in 7 countries on the continent over the last 3 years have had some kind of film or crust on the inside, and the only recourse families have is to put pebbles and sand inside and shake vigorously.  Not exactly a sterile solution.

This is why research and field testing is so critical before technologies are released en mass upon developing countries.  In our consumer-driven culture, all it takes is a couple thousand people complaining about a faulty product and the manufacturer will do a mass recall.  The true injustice of poverty is that the poor have no such voice and there is no accountability for the tens of thousands of agencies that descend up developing countries with the latest and greatest in poverty “solutions”.

Imagine  how you’d feel if it the Brita water filter on your faucet was discovered to facilitate bacteria growth, contaminating your drinking water and making you sick and there was nothing you could do to fix it?  You’d be outraged.  Headlines would fly fast and furious and the public (not to mention the EPA) would demand a recall.  Brita would be forced to respond or sacrifice their reputation and lose valuable customers.  Yet this is what we do to the poor every day.

There will never be a product recall on the 1+ million yellow jerry cans that have flooded communities around the world; nor any of the other inappropriate solutions imposed upon people in developing countries.  The poor have no voice.  If there is to be any change in this, then the only recourse is for us to have the integrity to hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard.

I was not really prepared.  As I turned the corner, my eyes took it in, and I felt my lungs fill with air, and let it all go,  as if I had just beheld a great waterfall, or a mountain vista.  It was nothing of the sort.  But it was still breathtaking.  It was around 3:30pm.  I looked at the sky, which had turned a woolen gray, and then back at the paper where I had scribbled the information.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect. My oldest son draped in a replicated Union army cap and coat, and my youngest bundled up against the short bursts of winter wind, and spray of cold rain, walked with me, the two blocks from our house to a quaint little house and barn that had been preserved as a reminder of a great and bloody battle.

It was the anniversary of the Battle of Franklin, one of the most gruesome battles of the Civil War.  We were the first spectators to arrive.  The busy street had been blocked off for hours, as a small handful of volunteers placed a candle in a white paper bag for each of the nearly ten thousand soldiers that lost their lives during that fateful day of November 30th, 1864.

We walked slowly down the rows and rows of white bags that stretched out of sight, and down the street.  Perhaps it was the combination of gray clouds, misty rain, and the fact that history becomes decidedly more important to me when I am walking along with two little people who represent the future. But I was struck by the magnitude of such a display.  I was sobered by a visual of what “ten thousand” looked like.

I began to consider what it must have felt like to be there.  Both sides fighting, moved onward by a sense of purpose and conviction that was worth overcoming fear and entering even unto death.  Have I ever experienced or even witnessed two passionately opposing forces at the climax of purpose? Have I ever felt the weight of the kind of upholding of a belief that springs from the core of their souls or the urgency to protect something that rests as the very foundation of humanity?  I have never been to war.  I have appreciated it’s brutal power, and have even hovered around the ripple effects of it’s deadly sting, as friends have dealt with the loss of loved ones.  But I was humbled by the view in front, and all around me as I walked, and counted and imagined the faces and stories of each of those soldiers.  It is regretable that the story of American History must hold the Civil War in it’s pages.

Today is another day to remember.  There is another battle that our streets are not lengthy nor wide enough to hold the number of luminaries to represent all that have fallen during the fight.   It is the fight against HIV/AIDS.  And today, I remember the hands of men that I have held while doing my best to comfort them in their dying hours.  I remember the stories of hopelessness, of fear, of despair that blanketed the air of entire communities like the gray clouds of November in Franklin, TN.

But there is so much risk in thinking about too many stories at once.  Without a way to visualize millions of faces, I am reminded that AIDS is a disease that kills one person at a time.  It is a disease that destroys the body, one blood cell at a time.  It destroys families one person at a time.  It creates a void, a deep emptiness where hope and health should be,  one story at a time.  And so today,  I am thinking about how I can help one person.  How I can love and act, and advocate on behalf of one person.  And in the midst of this great and challenging fight, we may one day realize that we have the opportunity to not be able to visualize the millions of stories that have regained their threads of hope, and sustained their health.

Can you think of a person?  Can you put yourself in the place of someone wrestling with HIV/AIDS?  Do you wonder what their fears might be? Do you wonder what their families might be going through?  Do you consider the moment that they have to bring the news of their illness to their family? Is there room in your heart,  in my heart to feel what they feel?

Today is World AIDS Day.  To most of us, it is just another day.  What would it take for us to remember there is no such thing as “Just another day.”  And what would it look like to do our best to ensure that those wrestling on this day under the weight of this disease can make it to the next?

It is in our hands.  It is our ideas, our passion, our willingness to learn, to fail, to search, to love, and to fight that will bring forth the ideas and the designs to beat HIV/AIDS.

It is my hope that we will continue to feel the urgency of this great need.  It is my desire that we will continue to open our hearts to the stories of people all around the world that suffer.

I believe that God has given us this great privilege to be a part this great act of healing.  Please join us in praying, in knowing, in loving, and in serving.

And maybe we can one day celebrate by saying, “Happy World AIDS Day!”

Peace to you- Dan Haseltine

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Blood:Water Mission is combatting AIDS not only through clean water & sanitation projects, but by directly funding health clinics, community health workers, and support groups, which help in the prevention, treatment, care and support of communities affected by AIDS.

Do Something Now. Donate today to continue supporting the work of Blood:Water Mission.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

For more information on World AIDS Day visit the World Health Organization’s website HERE where you can read a statement from WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan reflecting on some of the achievements of the past 20 years.

A number of years ago I found myself inexorably drawn into the realm of woodwind crafting.  A tangent of one of my lesser known, and much neglected skills – flute playing.  I started off with classical flute in the 6th grade.  No, scratch that… I started off with recorder when I was 7 years old.  I remember, quite distinctly, sitting on my bed in Sierra Leone with my mom, both of us tooting on plastic recorders she’d brought over from the United States the year before.  With no TV for entertainment (heck, no electricity), it was a worthy way to pass the time and gave me a head start on piano when I came back to the States in ’84.  But I digress.  Classical flute gave way to Irish flute and Irish whistles.  I have flirted here and there with other forms of folk music and ethnic tangents, but have always returned to my Irish roots.  Like many of my pass-times, it proved rather expensive, especially since folk woodwinds are not chromatic instruments – meaning they only play one root key.  Therefore it is necessary to amass a full range of keys.  Which was perfectly fine by me.  However, there were also many various and sundry kinds of folk woodwinds, each with their subtle tones and quirks, and each requiring a range of keys and modes.

And so, as with so many of my interests, what I couldn’t afford to buy, I aspired to make.  And thus my woodwind crafting days began.  I won’t regale you with tales of hours spent researching the internet, ordering obscure books, chiseling out specialized tools, and days and weeks whittling away at pipes and blocks of wood.  My first flutes looked like something chipped out by an early paleolithic caveman.  Fortunately, with the help of the internet, my skills evolved much more rapidly, and after several months I emerged from the late mesozoic era with something that hissed and rasped like a chain-smoking goat.  Over time, my clunky instruments, which were heavy and required a small team of mules to haul around, became more delicate, and the craftsmanship became more refined.  I was privileged to spend a day with world-renown flute maker Patrick Olwell as well as the multitalented Erik Sampson.  I learned to craft Quena, Shakuhachi, Pan Pipes, and Native American flutes.  A few were hand turned on a lathe, but most were made from a species of bamboo known as arundinaria gigantea which thrives in the southern United States.  I spent most days covered in wood dust and smelling like smoke from the woodburning tools I used to engrave and inlay design on the finished instruments.

In blogs of long ago I posted some of my instruments, but none exist yet on this latest installment; and since returning from Cambodia I have yet to take up my flutecrafting tools (mostly because I can’t get to my workbenches in the garage for all the junk).  So, I post here one of my favorite pieces, a Native American flute inlaid with sterling silver and bands of Honduran rosewood.  A recording I made of this instrument can be found here.

Picking my way through the rocks and spines, I was greeted by the reason we had come to this place.  A small cinder-block building filled with the last thing you would expect in a desert wasteland: school children.  And not ragged, malnourished waifs, but neatly pressed, vibrant youth.  They stood at rigid attention before a flagpole as a dozen senior boys performed a series of marches before raising the Kenyan flag.  Then, amidst a flurry of giggles and pushing, the 100 or so children, from first grade through eighth, scattered across the dusty school yard to their respective classrooms with many a curious glance in our direction.

This is Torbi, a small outpost community that lies deep in the Chalbi (sp-) Desert, cuts across northern Kenya like a giant ribbon.  7 nomadic tribes inhabit this region, some tracing their ancestry back to ancient Egypt.  They have been etched and shaped by the landscape, tall and proud; their vibrant clothing and beaded jewelry almost a gesture of defiance in the face of this punishing environment.  Most are nomadic pastoralists, driving herds of camels and goats from water-source to water-source, picking at the sparse vegetation along the way.  Like so many resource-scare regions, conflict is a part of life, as tribes battle for possession of water and grazing lands.  The day before we arrived in this community, a rival tribe stormed the village and stole 100 goats, killing a man in the process.

Education, like water is scare, but just as essential for future generations. Population growth, decreasing seasonal rains, over grazing, and chronic isolation paint a picture of the desperate need for education of tribal children; without it they are predestined to live out the same existence as the generations before them.  These and other stories tumbled out of the principal’s lips as we sat on wooden chairs in his dusty office.  While most African cultures are typically passive and indirect, the people here speak their minds with short, matter-of-fact statements, as if words are like water and too precious to waste.  There was little doubt that his words were not an exaggeration.  If anything, they downplayed the struggles faced by these families who have no choice but to balance the forces of nomadic living with the need to settle in one location so their children can attend school.

One question remained to be asked: what allows children to attend school?  The answer was as obvious as the giant dust devils that swirled on the horizon outside: water.  Without it, there is no feasibly way for children to attend school.  Groundwater is buried 700 feet underground, and often times it is brackish and undrinkable.  The only other viable means for obtaining water is through massive rain collection systems.  Which is precisely what BWM has partnered to build.  We funded catchment systems at 6 schools this last year and are in the planning phase for reaching the remaining 26 schools in this region.  The goal is to provide enough storage to provide students with water sufficient to meet international standards throughout the year.

As I watch two boys, barely 8 and 10 years old, drive goats across the desert it’s a reminder that the world is not a neat and tidy place where problems have straight forward solutions.  These are a people who live in the most desolate of circumstances, and the problems they face are an entanglement of complex factors that have baffled development organizations for over 40 years.  We are one small part of this solution, but it is a critical part, and I am excited to see the transformations that will take place in these schools as we join with them in building hope for the future.

Her name is Eliné Hohwana and she is an orphan living with her grandmother in a nearby village.  She lost both her parents last year to AIDS and now spends most of her time collecting water for her grandmother from this well, which had been newly repaired through our help.  She has not been tested for HIV and to the best of my understanding she possesses no other surviving family, nor brothers or sisters.  She is the victim of the plague that has devastated so much of sub-Saharan African and I now understand why her her face reflects so much sadness. 

Hers is not the only story.  According to studies there are over 326,000 AIDS orphans in Mozambique, which has the 8th highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world (16.2%).  Somehow these numbers always seem so meaningless; that is until you attach them to the sightless gaze of a 3-year old child alone at a well.  I think to my own daughter, scarcely a year older, and I can’t help but wonder how many nights Eliné has cried herself to sleep at the loss of her parents, failing to understand their losing battle against a disease that has claimed more than 32 million lives to date.  Suddenly 326,000 orphans seems like a number of deplorable proportions, knowing that tears from so many are uncountable.

Standing here watching Eliné I am at a loss for words.  We have fulfilled our mission – the provision of clean water to a school and a community – the impacts of which will be far-reaching to these children who suffer from unending boughs of typhoid and amoebic dysentery, missing weeks and months of school every year, and untold hours of productivity.  And yet it doesn’t seem like enough.  Water will never wash away the pain of this small child nor satisfy the loneliness of her soul.  There is no amount of money nor efforts of man which will change the past.  To remove her from her current situation will simply cause her more damage, and the interventions of programs like ours and others will take decades to fully transform the poverty of this harsh land.  I cannot even give her a simple hug since my large white form would probably terrify her, and any words of comfort I could offer would not even be in a language she would understand.  My helplessness to intervene is absolute at every level, and I want to scream in frustration…

Instead I can only walk away with inexpressible sadness and a desperate cry that God will find a way to heal the heart of this small child.

This is the work we engage in my friends.  At one point a well spring of joy and at other times a hole of unspeakable sadness.  We can each only do our best in the moment and pray that God will bring about the restoration of human kind that so relentlessly eludes us.

But for today, I weep for the orphans of Africa.

There is, I suppose, a fine line between the edge and over the edge, and while some may no doubt question the sanity of many of my life choices, my continued existence upon this earth is proof that I have yet to cross that line. In my defense, I feel that I must point out that life has conspired to place me in hazardous conditions more often than the average adventurer, and while such experiences do in fact make superb story material, many were beyond my choosing.  I am sure there are countless times my mother wondered if I would survive this long, and so, in honor of achieving the ripe old age of 32, here are 32 of my best near-death experiences:  

1. Playing in my backyard in Sierra Leone and discovering two cobras that were also playing in the backyard.
2. Sprinting a record-breaking 1/4 mile down a dusty road at midnight with a pack of tribal bandits swinging axes and machetes close behind.
3. Surviving 8 white-knuckle hours in a Cambodian taxi on the back roads to Poipet only to discover that the driver had bribed the license bureau after failing his driving test.
4. Near heart failure in Sierra Leone when the wooden struts of the log bridge we were driving over collapsed from under the wheels of our truck (which provided a wonderful view of the 20 foot ravine below); fast-forward 12 years and an uncanny repeat of the incident in PNG which has instilled in me an intense dislike for log bridges.
5. Accidentally canoeing through a herd of hippos on a jungle river in west Africa.
6. Being hit by a train after falling asleep in a pick-up truck on the railroad tracks in central Ohio.
7. Waking up in the middle of the night to the sensation my sleep-bag-wrapped-body plummeting head first from the hammock which, nano-seconds before, had been securely fastened 15 feet up in the branches of a rather large oak tree.
8. Tied for 5 hours at gunpoint in a tropical rainforest; courtesy of a roving gang of burley New Guinean bandits.
9. Careening inches from a 200 foot cliff-face in a 4×4 truck while traversing a monsoon-induced landslide.
10. Running out of oxygen at 60 feet in the Bismarck Sea, only to discover my diving buddy had jokingly turning off the air to my scuba tank (not surprisingly, he later faced his own near-death experience).
11. Riding my horse bareback at a dead run and avoiding a deadly collision with a barb-wire fence post by bailing off into a gravel road.
12. Hiding for 2 hours behind a large rock on the wrong side of a Kenyan military shooting range during an exercise involving explosive mortar rounds.
13. Emergency evacuation to Panama for treatment of childhood pneumonia coupled with meningismus.
14. Choking down Twinkie-sized grubs in PNG, which, like America’s favorite snack, were also white and gooshy on the inside (maybe not life threatening, but at the time I thought I was going to die).
15. Trapped under a raft in the backwash of a 12-foot, Class 5 rapid on the Nile river.
16. Nurturing an acute, double-whammy case of typhoid and amoebic dysentery after spending 4 weeks on the Sepik river (probably from eating those twinkie-size grubs).
17. Hunkering down inside of 4 sleeping bags and trying to ignore the 60mph gusts that threatened to blow me off the 12,000 foot peak in northern Colorado where I was attempting to sleep in the dead of winter.
18. Blowing through a 15-man roadblock comprised of half-drunk, gun-swinging PNG natives.
19. 11 hours of hurtling through mud-thick logging trails and dense Cambodian street traffic, in the rain, on a dilapidated 250cc Honda dirt bike missing both sets of brakes and a functioning headlight.
20. Adroitly slipping out of a coconut tree and falling 15 feet onto a balmy beach in Kenya … with a 12″ hunting knife in hand.
21. Climbing into a 40ft stand of bamboo outside my middle school in the PNG highlands in order to escape [yet another] tribal fight.
22. Waking up in the wilderness of southern Colorado to discover bear tracks 20ft from my pillow; no doubt attracted by the half-empty soup cans unceremoniously deposited at the foot of my brother’s sleeping bag.
23. Near-miss lightning strike in a grass hut.
24. Hydro planing at 70mph in the pouring rain, jumping the median and clearing an 8ft highway crossing in a full loaded ’94 Ford Tempo Sedan.
25. Inadvertently intruding upon the secret ceremonies of a sect of Bon-Boni (vodoo) witch doctors in village of west Africa; viewing of the ceremony was under penalty of death.
26. Escaping Papua New Guinea’s avian version of the velociraptor [aka: a Cassowary] by climbing vines suspended from the rainforest canopy.
27. Swimming with severe leg cramps 200 feet off shore in the South Pacific after doing the breast stroke through a mob of several hundred blue-bottle jelly fish (perhaps not entirely life threatening, but given the excruciating pain on every surface of my body, I was wishing I was dead).
28. Haplessly mugged by 6 men in a restaurant in Nairobi.
29. Losing my eyebrows and most of my bangs after lighting a lantern in a closed-in tent with what turned out to be gasoline.
30. Walking down dark village paths at night with a flashlight trying not to fall into any passing Driver Ant colonies; large colonies having been known to consume small antelope.
31. Careening down a windy mountain road in PNG in a public bus only to crash head-on into a semi truck that had brilliantly managed to take up both lanes on a blind curve.
32. Mobbed by an angry Cambodian wedding party after collapsing their 80 foot pink wedding tent by running it over with my Toyota Tacoma.

If you haven’t been in on the latest trends in charity PR moves of the last 5 years, you may have missed out on “Product (Red)” and other similar concepts.  (Red) products are an attempt to get our consumer-driven society to aid impoverished nations without actually having to sacrifice our consumeristic lifestyle. The basic premise is “buy a trendy looking Product (Red) item and a percentage of the profit goes to fund humanitarian charities”. The idea has actually been around for awhile, but with Bono’s support it’s now a full-blown American fad and everyone from Starbucks to Apple have their version products they market to “help the poor”. Frankly, I’ve always found (Red) and similar campaigns a bit ironic and somewhat frustrating, for many reasons. Four of these reasons are worth passing on:

Firstly, if your actual goal is to help impoverished communities and be a global citizen, then just donate 100% of the $20, $40, or $200 bucks you were going to spend on [yet another] shirt, shoes, ipod, or whatever, instead of buying the product and only having 5% of your money go to helping the poor.

Second, part of the reason poor countries are poor is because we are a gross-consumer nation. I know you hear so many statistics that they go in one ear and out the other but let’s reflect momentarily on just one: together with all the 1st world nations (which total 25% of the world’s population) we consume 85% of the world’s resources (Americans make up 25% of that). Did you catch that?! 75% of the world’s population lives off of 15% of the planet’s resources! IS IT ANY WONDER THEY ARE POOR! So lets think our aid strategy through logically: our over-consumption exacerbates global poverty and our answer to poverty is to design programs that motivate us to consume even more so that we can feel good about a small percentage being donated to humanitarian charities. Oh yeah, that makes so much sense. Lets take that concept one step further. Most of the time the products purchased are actually manufactured in those 3rd world countries from local resources. So basically, they make a shirt at 15 cents an hour, which is then exported to you to purchase for $80 bucks so that $2 can be donated back to them so they can what… afford to buy clothes for their family and put food on the table? Nice.

Third point, and this is really the one that inspired this post, Product (Red) and other similar consumer products are typically manufactured in… wait for it… yes, China. CHINA! There is extreme irony in the fact that we’ve labeled these products (Red). I was in a local store here in town that sells products by a non-profit, which shall remain un-named, but one that has been gaining recognition in recent years for it’s work in Sudan. Now they may be a perfectly wonderful organization, I don’t know, but I was fairly disgusted when I flipped over the tags of the various clothing items they were selling to discover that they were all made in China. Here’s why: I’m sure all of you have seen the various calls for boycotts against the Beijing Olympics in an effort to pressure China into stopping its indirect aid of the Sudanese genocide. China over the last number of years has been, by far, the largest arms dealer to the Sudanese government (95% of small arms), and has been one of the major forces for stalling and watering down UN peace efforts in Darfur. Tell me, what exactly is the logic in marketing products to aid Sudan when they are manufactured in China!? I mean, you might as well put a label on the product that says “5% of your your purchase went to aid starving orphans in Sudan – 50% of your purchase went to China to fund the Sudanese genocide.”

Finally, point four – so you buy a product and the money goes to do something – do you actually know how your money was invested and whether or not the programs you are supporting are actually accomplishing something effective in fighting poverty? There are a lot of non-profits out there, but sadly, a large percentage of them don’t actually affect positive change. Some of them actually create dependency and exacerbate poverty through unsustainable solutions and projects that dehumanize the poor. I couldn’t be more serious. Before you hire someone to fix your car you research a reputable mechanic right?  Poverty alleviation is a heck of a lot more complicated than the inside of your Honda Accord, but how many people actually take time to find out who is really effective in implementing international development programs? Please don’t tell me you just immediately believe the propaganda that’s on their website.

We as Americans need to start becoming serious about actually helping developing countries and we need to start becoming smart about the ways we do it. The reason this whole process infuriates me is because we have so many good people who are motivated to do something positive in the world that decide, but their actions are directed by media and campaigns to take action by purchasing something. And because they think they’ve done something to help they world they move on. But the action taken doesn’t necessarily effect positive change. Either its effects are marginal (like in point #1) or actually contributes to the original problem (like points #2 & #3) or it causes it’s own new problems (like point #4). But they’ve moved on with a feel-good notion that the world is now a better place. The question is, ‘who’s fault is it’? Is it the organization’s fault for creating a lousy aid strategy or is it the consumer’s fault for not taking the time to understand how to really impact people in a positive way? I hope you think it’s both.

And please read me loud and clear, I’m not against profits from sales going to help poor people. I bought a nalgene (USA made) just the other day that went to support a cause instead of buying one at REI.  I have a Starbucks (Red) gift card I use to buy coffee – every little bit helps. What I take issue with is the fact that:

1. we’ve marketed consumerism as a substitute method for an individual to be involved in the global fight against poverty and
2. that the vast majority of products sold for this purpose are actually in of themselves contributors to poverty and oppression.

So, the next time you pick up a bottle of Ethos Water or try on a Product (Red) ask yourself why you’re doing it. If it’s because you actually need the item then awesome – support the cause (provided it isn’t made in China)! But if it’s because you want to help poor people in Africa or wherever, then do those people a favor and don’t; instead reduce your resource consumption and take the money you save and send it to an organization that has a reputation for implementing positive change in impoverished communities. That’s how real change begins.

For a Westerner, this daily hardship is unimaginable. For Utamuriza, in northern Rwanda, it’s inevitable. But it’s not really the hike, or the 1000 extra calories she burns every day that keeps her just slightly malnourished; she could even live with the long lines at the source, or fighting that breaks out when others try to cut to the front, or when scarcity forces disputes between rival villages. The part that brings a sense of despair is that there seems no way out. Her treks for water comprise over 6 hours of labor every day, a task that often make her late for school, even missing classes all together. In this world, education provides the only future and most children miss anywhere from 4 to 10 days of school a month because of household work like hauling water, or the diseases that come from drinking from unclean sources.

Let’s complicate things. Water-borne disease is not just limited to typhoid, cholera, giardia, amoebic dysentery, ascaris, schistosomiasis, hookworm or trachoma – the combined forces of which infect over 50% of the developing world’s population at any one time and claim the lives of over 2 million children every year. Water-borne diseases also include common parasites like roundworm and tapeworm. Bloated abdomens are the usual indicator, and these parasites can consume up to 30% of the nutrients ingested by their host, exacerbating malnutrition, hampering the immune system, and stunting childhood development at an early age. Colds, flu, and respiratory infections all have roots in poor hygiene as do skin diseases such as scabies, and fungal infections. We’d like to think that putting a clean source of water in a community would be enough – if so, our jobs would be quite easy. But to actually reduce disease, the water has to stay clean and be used properly. Contamination between source and point of use is extremely high without proper hygiene education. Practices your mother always harped on when you were a kid, like washing hands, taking baths, and putting the lid back on containers have to be implemented for health improvements to be actualized.

While the idea of hygiene may seem like a no-brainer consider this: it’s not so long ago that western civilization thought that diseases came from lighting and “bad air” and doctors performed open surgery without so much as washing their hands let alone wearing scrubs. It wasn’t until the 1860’s when Louis Pasteur proved that bacteria caused disease that our worldview changed to embrace the impact of the mico-world, and even then the magnitude of that discovery took several decades to become accepted by mainstream society. We have lived with this idea for only the last 150 years; a mere breath of time compared to the millennia spent hiding from “bad air”. So it should come as no surprise that educating rural communities on the practices of good hygiene is difficult. The processes of worldview change and actual behavior change requires relationships, trust, and above all, time.

“Water is Life” is a slogan I’ve heard repeated in most of the communities we have visited. It’s life in more ways than just one – it’s wellbeing, it’s health, it’s time, it’s education, it’s peace, it’s hope. This year our partners will be initiating a spring development project in Utamuriza’s village that will improve flow rates and pipe water to a central location near the village. They’ll begin a comprehensive program to teach hygiene and assist families in implementing it in their homes. This project will impact three communities on the region and they, along with Utamuriza, will experience a whole new life.

Late last year when traveling through a village in central Kenya Jena and I came across a 4-year old orphan girl suffering from club foot syndrome. For those of you not familiar with club foot, it is a birth defect that affects the feet, typically causing the feet to turn inwards and sideways. It’s a disability that is correctable but only if caught at an early age. Zinnat was four and nearing the maximum age for which surgery would be effective. Her disability was severe and she was nearly incapable of walking. Generally speaking, girls are already a marginalized group, orphans more-so, and a disabled orphan girl… Hard rural life is rarely kind to even the most able of people; for her there was not a great deal of hope.

Of course we helped her… Well, no…. Not “of course”.

The world is full of need. I pass by it on every trip. Every village contains its own stories of the destitute. Every street-corner is a home for a beggar, cripple, or orphan of some kind. There are always hands tugging at my shirt sleeves. There are always voices calling out. Sometimes there are no words; just silent eyes imploring.

But I don’t have time to stop for everyone. I have a mandate to fulfill. Clean Water! Clean Blood! That’s what I’m here for. I don’t have programs and strategies for addressing all the needs of Africa. I don’t have money for investing in every problem I encounter. And I have two, maybe three weeks to be as productive as possible and then I have my own family, desperate to have me back home again. Besides there are other people better equipped to handle these other “sectors” – agriculture, nutrition, medical care, education. We all do our part. Clean Water! Clean Blood! That’s my part. I’ve helped lots of other people…

It’s not easy being a NGO worker. I have performance expectations. Some placed on me by my organization. Some placed by donors who give money. Some by my own intrinsic values. There are goals to achieve, outputs to accomplish, I have funding I have to invest, and reports to write. We have to be accountable! We have to prove we are making a difference! You can’t do that without numbers. Yes… the almighty ‘number’.

So you see – not “of course”.

Maybe you think I’m crazy or callous or even heartless. Let me ask you a question: how many times have you been ‘wowed’ by a number and then walked away to go buy a coffee or check facebook? Those numbers are made up of actual people just like Zinnat. Or do you think poverty is just an issue in Africa? Are needy people just those with financial problems? How many needy people live in your area? The guy you always see hanging out near the highway with a “hungry” sign. The bum that asks you for change while pumping gas. The kid in the raggy clothes shuffling home from school. How about an alcoholic neighbor or a couple caught in a destructive downward spiral in their relationship. But you’re like me right? You’ve got a job, a family; someplace important you need to be… maybe you volunteer at your church or soup kitchen, or your local chapter for Habitat for Humanity. You give money to charities, and that should be enough right? You can’t help everyone you pass by, and there are certainly organizations that are reaching out to the needy in your area; ministries that are better equipped to deal with those types of ‘issues’.

You want to know something? Mostly I’m just making excuses. But I’m not the only one making them. Sure, I literally can’t help everyone out there. I don’t actually have either the money or time to affect significant long-term change in every person’s life I see. But the funny thing is, some of the most important things you give don’t cost money or even take a lot of time. But it takes something most of us aren’t willing to give… ourselves. The short moment it takes to look someone in the eye and make them feel valued; a brief conversation; a word or a touch that conveys meaning and affirmation – that I can give to everyone I meet.

Intentionality with a little compassion. It doesn’t take much. And most of the time, that’s the best thing you can do for someone. In the word’s of a very wise Rwandan man I know, “you Americans are too concerned about solutions. You need to understand the importance of the ministry of relationships.” And he’s right.

The funny thing is, relationships compel action. Jena and I did do something about Zinnat. I could have walked past but we took a moment to talk to her, pray together, let her sit on our laps and hear her story. And those moments of intentionality affected me perhaps more than Zinnat. We researched clinics and found one in Kenya that specializes in corrective surgery for club foot syndrome and we made sure Zinnat got there. She’s recovering now and this month Jena is visiting her to see how she’s doing.

I wish I could say I always respond to people with that kind of compassion, that kind of relational action. But I don’t. And there’s really no good excuse for it.

How about you? What’s your excuse?