Day Eleven:

       The calendar says that I am a quarter of the way through the 40 day challenge and I have to say that it's true what they say about being able to think more deeply about things when you are deprived of something you are used to having.

       Today I have been thinking about an aspect of water that doesn't involve being thirsty. It is the problem of sanitation. Another byproblem of having a lack of accesible clean water.

       I am sure most of you have and I know I have experienced times when the power went out, sometimes for a few days at a time due to bad weather or a main power line beeing downed. How inconvenient when their is no electricity to pump water up to our faucets or toilets. I don't know about you, but at that time water and sanitation becomes a big part of my thought process.  This week I have been thinking about what it would be like to be in that situation permanently.  From the time we are in preschool here in the Western world, we are taught hygiene.  Everyone has sung the "Twinkle Twinkle little star" song while washing hands and the proper technique on how to do. We take for granted that the rest of the world has been taught the same thing.  What I have learned is that a lot of programs involved in the clean water campaigns are spending time, energy and money teaching water hygiene techniques to not only children but adults as well. Amazing... I had no idea!

The "tippy tap" is a low cost, low tech, low water, hands-free device to promote hand washing with soap.

         It baffles me to think that thousands of children die all over the world not only because they have no access to clean water, but the water that they do have available to them is so far away, scarse and not very potable. They skip sanitation practices because either it takes too much energy or due to ignorance and they end up getting sick or dying from diahrea, dehydration caused by gineaworm, disentary, cholera, trachoma which are all water born diseases. All this is so preventable with education and simple water saving techniques.