Every year, March 8th marks International Women's Day. This weekend has been full of celebrations connected to this day, including a an event called Women and Water Rights.
I attended the symposium (Woman & Water Rights: Global Policy - Local Action) on Thursday and caught two speakers highlighting different narratives within the topic. I've been ruminating on one of the questions asked and the speaker's response.
The question was along the lines of "What is the connection between me and other women around the world, who lead very different lives, and in particular their lives involve so much labor just to obtain water (maybe not even clean) for their families, and we just turn a knob."
For one, you really have to let this question sink into your pores. I wasn't knocked out by it; the experience has been more along the lines of a clamp that gets tighter every round you wind.
The compression has reached a peak; I'm weighed down. Not with guilt, but with a mixture of sorrow and lamenting. Sorrow for their suffering, sorrow for the ease and convenience of my life, and lamenting for the injustice and corruption and the "not rightness" of the world.
I'm weighed down by the beautiful poem that was shared in a response to this thought. The speaker didn't have an answer. She, too, had looked at this question and did not pull out an silver-bullet-development solution. Her poem was full of imagery and carried the same grief.
Maybe it's a grief common to women; even unmarried childless women can share it. I feel like I share in it, as I imagine a Kenyan woman walking 2 miles to gather water and firewood for her family. The grief has a particle of distrust. A particle of anger. A particle of helplessness. A particle of joy. A particle of apathy. A particle of perseverance.
The topic and poem affected me in another way, as I have been working over the weekend taking surveys at a boat show. The survey is for a joint university/state/federal project about public knowledge of invasive species in water as well as boater's habits. There are 7 questions and a blue "shammy" as a thank you. (Repeat xxx times with a smile, and don't take rejection personally).
There are many notable aspects of this new survey experience, but I'll focus on the connection to the topic. Here I am, asking people about their habits and knowledge about water. I'm asking men and women who enjoy water for recreational purposes, and water may also be a big factor in how they make their living. Many of them do not realize the magnitude of the threat of invasive species, and the likelihood that the resources they treasure may degrade from invasive species impact. Yet many people are very responsive and concerned.
Still, water in our lives is at a different than my imaginary friend across the ocean. Water separates us from each other; and yet it is water that unites us all.
I'll conclude this thought with music, another reality that unites us:
"It's the terror of knowing
what this world is about...
watching some good friends scream let me out...
Pray tomorrow - gets me higher
Pressure on people - people on streets....
Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love
Give love give love give love give love
Give love give love give love
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves "
-Under Pressure by Queen
