Gratitude Month - Water

Today I am grateful for clean, pure, plentiful water.

This morning when I woke up for my very early morning conference call (5:30 AM) it was 21 degrees outside. I could feel the cold in all the places in my body that I have ever injured. My back, my knee, my foot, my arm...all of it ached. I consoled myself with the thought that as soon as I could get off the phone I would take a nice, hot, Epsom salts filled bath. But while I was sitting in that warm bath I couldn't help but remember something I had seen on the internet a few days ago on water. org.

I knew that "Nearly one billion people lack access to safe water and 2.5 billion do not have improved sanitation." But what I had never thought about was the impact that water or the lack of access to water has on women. Water. org states it simply - "Glass ceilings aside, millions of women are prohibited from accomplishing little more than survival. Not because of a lack of ambition, or ability, but because of a lack of water. Millions of women and children in the developing world spend untold hours daily, collecting water from distant, often polluted sources, then return to their villages carrying their filled 40 pound jerry cans on their backs. And though women are responsible for the majority of food production in their villages, their productivity is severely limited by this constant struggle."

So as part of my gratitude for living in a land where I never worry about the wastefulness of filling an entire bathtub with water just so I can float around in it some...I have decided to make a small donation to water.org. They say on their site that for $ 25 you can provide water for life for one person. Sounds like a good use of $ 25.