Austin Wechter

Today I woke up,
in a bed under a roof,
without fear of wondering whether I would eat or drink clean water,
Today, I am blessed.


Today I got dressed,
with a choice of hundreds of items,
clothes that are clean, no mending needed, and no holes in the soles.
Today, I am blessed.


Today I went to work,
not only for a job, but a job I love,
where I make enough to have no needs and very little wants,<
without the worry of whether I would have a job tomorrow or not,
Today, I am blessed.


Today I went for a run,
I was able to enjoy the beautiful day,
Exercise was for fun and not for survival,
Today, I am blessed.


Today I enjoyed friendships,
not just a few friendships, but a few dozen friendships,
Friends who I am able to be "me" around, without having to be someone else.
Today, I am blessed.


Everyday, I am blessed.

The need for good, clean water sources in Sierra Leone ( and Africa in general ) is hard to imagine for us. We are accustomed to grabbing a glass and filling it up at the sink, or even grabbing a bottled water from the fridge. We don’t give a second thought about what that water might contain, or the consequences that might follow after quenching our thirst.

It’s a different story in Sierra Leone though. Clean water is almost a luxury. Most get their water from a well where, if they are lucky, it was dug properly and pulls clean water. They are even luckier if the well doesn’t dry up by the end of the day. I had the privilege of traveling to Sierra Leone in January. Although we were there mostly to visit an orphanage, we had the opportunity to do some research on the water situation in a few remote villages: Mayumra, Mabunto Bans, and Newton.

Newton was a small village and their closest clean water well was a 5 mile hike down the road. If they are unable to make the trek, then they are forced to drink from the source seen in the two images below.

Can you imagine having to drink that? Drinking from unsafe water sources like this one means the high risk of getting life-threatening diseases such as malaria and diarrhea. The benefit of a clean water source isn’t just improved health. A safe water well in your village means higher morale, less time spent on fetching water, and more time spent on business, education, and family.

Some of the villages we visited had water wells. However, they were improperly dug and had gone dry or weren’t deep enough to filter the water properly. It isn’t enough just to go dig a well in a village. Sanitary education is just as important as the well itself. In order to keep a well producing clean water, the awareness of contamination must be brought to attention. One village we visited had placed their latrine not far enough away from the well and it was contaminated the source, simply because they did not know any better.

It wasn’t until I took this trip that I realized what exactly the water crisis was. And indeed it is a crisis…