Last night Bill and I watched the Madonna Malawi documentary, I Am Because We Are, a work of art that scours the soul. Among the poorest countries in the world, Malawi is home to some 1 million orphans—children fending for themselves and for one another in a dusty, AIDS-afflicted world. Their struggles to live, to learn are here, in this film. So is their evanescence, their odds-defying radiance.
You can't watch a film like that without being moved to do something. This morning, in honor of all of us bloggers who clearly care about children and their future, I've again turned to the exquisite organization, Pump Aid, which, through its Elephant Pump technology, provides clean water to rural Malawi and Zimbabwe, in environmentally thoughtful fashion. Clean water helps to prevent disease. It nurtures gardens. It feeds communities. It affords hope. Pump Aid, the organization, allows those of us living here, in our comfortable homes, to do something.
Someday soon, through what is, in the scheme of things, a modest donation, a water-rich garden will flourish in rural Africa. A garden that feeds 250. That will be our garden, we bloggers. Seeds that we together planted.
Finally, the image here is a photo I took in the squatter's village known as Anapra, in Juarez, Mexico, where my fourth novel, The Heart is not a Size (Winter 2010), takes place. I have not myself traveled to Malawi. Last night's film made me wonder how and if I someday could.
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 12/2/2008
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 12/2/2008
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: The Heart is Not a Size, Malawi, water for life, Anapra, I am Because we Are, Pump Aid, elephant pump, Add a tag
4 Comments on Water for Life...from all of us, last added: 12/5/2008
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Sigh. The world has some sadness in it, doesn't it.
I had never heard of Pump Aid until I read this post...but I have now. Just made my donation online...
:^) Anna
Oh, Anna. You are too much. Hiding behind your mustache, being a gift to the world. Thank you.
"I am because we are, and we are because I am." I wrote down that quote on the first day of my Third World Issues class, but not who said it.
I knew a girl who spent nine months at an orphanage in Malawi. I think she fell in love; she has the outline of Africa tattooed on her back. I like what it says that people seem unable NOT to fall in love with the poorest countries.