As I walked through the pine and cork trees, I noticed a set of animal prints on the trail ahead. My curiosity got the best of me, and I followed them until they abruptly ended at a puddle of water left behind from a recent rainfall.
I kneeled beside the murky water, watching an insect dance across its surface. The water was brown, clouded with dirt and debris. I wouldn’t even rinse my hands in it.
And yet I knew that in Sub-Saharan Africa, millions of women and children walk miles every day to collect water that looks just like this. They carry it home. They drink it. Water contaminated with cholera, typhoid, dysentery. Water that kills 315,000 children each year.
The United Nations recognized water and sanitation as a human right in 2010, but the declaration didn’t change the reality for those millions still without access.
I stood and continued down the trail. At home, clean water flows from my tap whenever I want it. Here, I was surrounded by streams and springs, more water than I could ever need. And somewhere, people were walking miles for a puddle like the one I’d just left behind.