Your Normal Is Not Normal

August 05, 2015

       

  I generally wake up to the sound of my iPhone alarm around 7:00 am depending on how many times I hit the snooze button. Then I walk to my bathroom, make some room for the day to come, wash my hands with hot soap and water and head to the kitchen.

 He wakes up when the sun comes up, or when his upset stomach from the dirty water he drank last night has him rushing to the outhouse.

I boil some water on the stove for tea and throw down a piece of toast to eat with some eggs over easy while I slice up a banana for my yogurt.

 

He skips breakfast because he's already behind schedule for planting due to his illness the past week. I take a hot shower, get dressed and bike to the air conditioned office where i'll be from 9 to 5.
He has his son stay home from school to hike 3 miles up the mountain for the daily water supply so he can catch up the work in the field that he meant to already have done, but he hasn't been able to keep food down and got tired earlier than expected yesterday.

 I start to get hungry so I grab my water bottle, top it off with ice water from the community refrigerator, grab my sack lunch and head to the shaded benches to eat with a view.

He starts to feel dizzy from the heat and thirst in the field and takes a ten minute break in the shade of a plantain tree. His son isn't back yet with the water so he'll have to wait. He picks a plantain and nibbles on it to try and keep it down. 

     I finish my day at 5 and head home. I kick the shoes off,  order some take out , and get lost in a book for an hour before heading to my memory foam mattress.

He gets some fresh water when is son returns and works until the sun goes down. His wife has some fresh chicken cooking in a pot over the fire when he gets home. He eats some, and heads to his homemade bed and tries to get some rest before the sun wakes him up to do it again in 6 hours.

 

BOTH of these days described above were "normal." Just because something is normal doesn't mean it should be, and by providing clean water to people in need, millions of people's normal day would be much more comfortable, happy and productive. If we all do a little, we will change a lot.

Every purchase of a Vivid Roots product helps provide people in need with clean water. Help make a normal day better.

 

 

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