by Angela Stanfield – Ontario, Canada

Water is so important for life.  In western society we all depend on a ready supply of clean, filtered water that we can use to drink, cook, clean and bathe.  This is not always true in other parts of the world.  That is why organisations like The Waterbearers raise money to assist those in need of clean sources of water, and they promote challenges to others to bring awareness to the vital importance of access to clean water for everyone. 

One such challenge was recently posted to take place in tandem with this upcoming World Water Day on March 22, 2022.  It is called the ONE BUCKET Challenge.  The concept is simple, use only the equivalent of one bucket of water to drink, clean, cook and bathe in for one day.   The challenge is meant to ask one simple question, how would you prioritise your water needs and the needs of your family if you had only one bucket of water a day?

When I received the email about the challenge just after the New Year, I had immediately accepted it.  I thought it was a beautiful and insightful way to engage people and to help bring the awareness closer to home.  That, and I am always up for a challenge.  However, as fate would have it, I got to experience the challenge in real life, long before March 22nd.  It has helped me to learn a thing or two about water consumption which I would like to pass on to you should you decide to take on the challenge for yourself. 

This year we have been having a particularly cold winter in central Ontario, Canada.  The neighbourhood where I live is in a rural area and the water systems are old and antiquated, with the pipes not buried as deep as they likely should be.  As a result, the entire water system for the whole neighbourhood froze solid and we were without direct access to water for nearly two weeks. 

Fortunately, as a Waterbearer I have learned to keep clean drinking water on hand should we lose access.  Power failures are also common in rural areas of Ontario and this can stop access to water as the pumps rely on power to work.  For this reason, I always have water stored in the house to last for a couple of days.  When the water froze, I was already prepared.  Are you?

Now after a few weeks, with our frozen crisis averted and thankfully no pipes broken, I am ready to share a few tips and tricks that I have learned about prioritising water consumption. 

1. Let go of the need to do laundry, or any major cleaning.  If you are a bit of a clean freak you may have to step back from this and let it go.  There is simply not enough water to do these simple daily chores.  My family had to collect up their laundry and wait until we could get access to other family member’s washer and dryer at the end of each week.  Since the bucket challenge is only one day, letting go of laundry and major cleaning will likely be relatively easy, but think about how you would manage if there was a prolonged water crisis.  How would you juggle your resources to compensate? 

• Let go of showers and relax your personal hygiene requirements because there is simply not enough water.  Get use to a small bowl of water being your only source to clean your body and brush your teeth.  BEWARE, you have to plan ahead with the sequence of actions you are going to take or else you may accidentally use soap too soon, before you brush your teeth or wipe your face off.  Here is my sequence: use water to wet toothbrush, after brushing teeth wash face using a wet face cloth, then apply soap to facecloth and get all the private and stinky bits clean as best you can.  DO NOT put the soapy cloth back in the clean water.  Discard the soapy cloth, get a new one, wet it in the bowl with some of your dwindling water and use that to rinse the soapy bits.  When you have completed your body then rinse out the soapy cloth and use the use water to flush the toothpaste you spat in the sink down the drain. I found doing it this way made sure I got all the soap off my body so it did not dry out my skin and flushed all the waste down the sink.  The most important part I used every last drop of water for something.  Again, this may not be a difficult part of the challenge for most people because they can simply have a shower the night before and a quick wash the next would be no big deal.  But imagine if you could not have a shower the night before.   How long was it since you had a shower? What if you did not know when you would be able to fully clean yourself again?  What would you do then? Once again, how would you compensate?

• Separate your waste and waste water to use for various things.  This involves talking about a rather gross subject but a very important one, human waste.  In the western world we do not tend to think much about where our waste goes after it leaves our bodies.  That is what the toilet is for, right.  However, remember with the One Bucket challenge you would not be able to flush your toilet for the whole day, because one flush would use your entire day’s worth of water.  My family and I simply could not flush because we did not have the water, so we got inventive.  We separated our waste by peeing in our porta-potty and using the urine collected to flush the solid wastes we deposited in the toilet. The amount of water the western world uses just to flush waste is immense, but if that was not an option, what would you do?                                                                                                                                

• Keep an eye on the amount of dishes and pots and pans you produce in a day.  The more dishes, the more water needed to wash them.  My family and I decided to eat as light a possible and to reuse the same cup, cutlery and plates throughout the day, just giving them a quick rinse with a wet cloth and vinegar.  Then at the end of the day we would have a main meal and clean up all the dishes at once.  We did not simply waste this water either.  Once we were done the dishes, it was collected in a bucket and kept in the bath tub for times when the toilet needed flushing but there was nothing to flush it with.  This is how I learned that every last drop of water can be used in multiple ways, multiple times.  It also really got me thinking about the cycles of water in the natural world and how it is used in multiple ways multiple times over. 

• Remember to drink your daily intake of water.  My family drinks a lot of water.  Other than coffee, tea and the occasional juice all we drink is water, so for us not to have access is a big deal.  I found that my family’s daily intake dropped a bit because they naturally wanted to conserve water.  Try not to do this and remember if you have coffee, tea or other beverages outside the house on the One Bucket challenge that amount of water counts towards your usage.  Many of us do not think about these things as we go about our day because we have ready access to them.  However, we forget that there are people in this world who simply do not have the option to add beverages from Tim Horton’s or Starbucks to their daily fluid intake.  Their water comes from a contaminated stream five kilometres away.

These are my ONE BUCKET Challenge tips and tricks for you follow if you decide to take it on.  However, I would like to one up this challenge for those that dare to give it a whirl.  Why not shut your water off for more than just one day, do it for two, three of four days? Get a real sense of just how important a role water plays in our lives.  I never even talked about things like watering house plants or even our pets.  Animals and plants whether in a home or on a farm need water too.  How do we ensure they have enough water to survive? 

The ONE BUCKET Challenge is a great first step for people to understand the importance of water in their daily lives.  Please go to thewaterbearers.org to take up the challenge and encourage other to do so too.  Remember to support The Waterbearers as they celebrate World Water Day on March 22, 2022.

Tej, the founder of JEPC, was asked to do a water assessment for the slum area. He provided the information to thewaterbearers.org and we finalized our plans to meet up in Pokhara Nepal and take Jane, Erin, and the others on a tour of the study center and the slum area. They, in turn, would complete a more detailed assessment of the needs for clean water and provide filters for the study center and the slum area. I had not seen a demonstration of the water filters, so I was very excited to see how it all worked.

The group looked at the water system currently in place at both the study center (which NHCCH had installed) and the water systems used by the people in the slums. We noted that many of the small water storage units contained at individual homes were uncovered and dirty. One home in particular housed 3 young girls and their paralyzed father. The mother had recently died of hepatitis caused by dirty water. This really brought home the need to have clean sources of water for the community.

After touring the slum area, we returned to the study center where we were given a demonstration of the filters. The filter was installed on one clean bucket. It was a very simple process and I wondered how something this simple could possibly result in clean water. I was amazed when a bucket of water was filled with dirt and then that water was put in the bucket with the filter. But even more amazing was what came out of the bucket with the filter. It was clean pure water. I even drank some just to see how it tasted. Delicious!!!!! Oh my goodness, I was truly in awe by what the filter was able to accomplish.

Further discussions with thewaterbearers.org and with Dan Wright from My World Is My Country, resulted in the decision to also use ultra-violet light as an extra precaution for the children who were at greater risk. Dan, who lives in Kathmandu, will be working with engineers to design the system for the slum area in Pokhara, which will benefit over 700 people. Additional filters were left with the study center to provide clean water to as many people in the area as possible until the new system was in place.

I cannot really put into words what a wonderful experience this was and how much I appreciated having Jane, Erin and the rest of the group visit the study center and the slums. Their contribution to this area will help prevent the threat of water-borne diseases, which take so many lives. I look forward to continuing to work with thewaterbearers.org and hope anyone reading this will take the time to donate to this absolutely amazing, life-saving cause.

Pat Simmons is the President of NHCCH.

But, I’m here for a different reason.

So the luxury that greets me is a bit uncomfortable when I know that not-so-many-miles away there are people living without clean water.

This is what called me to Tulum—the opportunity to see first hand how the filters I recently raised funds to purchase, will be put to use. I’m here to feel a small part of The Waterbearers “for the love of water” campaign at work and to touch the lives of the people who will benefit from the filters we are here to deliver.

I have pictures of the communities we are coming to serve, and they don’t look anything like what I see as I embark from the airport shuttle.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted by what greets me.

Soft-white sands invite me to ditch my shoes…tropical winds caress my skin, play with my hair…exotic flowers dance against a backdrop of ocean…and a beautifully polished wood yurt stands in the center of it all. This is the sacred space that will serve as a womb for our community gathering during the coming week, as we explore what it means to be a Waterbearer.

My senses come alive as I open to water in her many forms.

I’m a bit impatient to get to the filter delivery, but I came for the whole experience, so I commit myself to truly feel what it is like to be with, and without, clean water.

During the opening circle, my eyes water with recognition as other women share why they are here. Through the amazing Mayan mud & sweat lodge ceremonies, my skin feels water evaporate and replenish. In the sacred cenotes, my cells drink in the fluid nourishment of rest & play as we float-splash-dive-laugh-whisper to one another what it feels like to connect with water’s abundant flow.

I’m so full…and there’s more.

As part of a special visit to the Speak Dolphin research facility, we engage with these wise-water-beings who radiate pure joy. We lie in their waters as they play around us. I receive their gift of curiosity. I give a prayer of gratefulness.

My whole being overflows with so much Love I will never be the same.

We deliver the filters. One school. One village. It’s all we can do this time, but the strength of this program is in the lasting relationships and education we are delivering too.

My heart is saturated with the essence of water, while my mind tries to grasp what it might be like to not have enough clean water to give my children every day. I carry images of these children with me, and will not forget the bigger reason we are here.

Yes, we are here to serve, and in that service is a hidden treasure.

Because through it all, the most quenching moments are those witnessing the beautiful blossoming as women serve up their hearts to become fast friends. We move through a few challenges, bumping up against our diversity, to come to recognize that ultimately we are all the same.

I didn’t know I was so thirsty!

We are all thirsty. We are thirsty for more than clean water and carefree days at the beach. We thirst for connection. We thirst to be part of something. We thirst to have our hearts filled up, to overflow our gifts so the world knows we are here.

Sometimes I forget this and fill my thirst with things that don’t really sustain me. Stepping into this experience is reminding me to slow down so I can remember why I’m really here.

I’m here to learn to love more completely. I’m here to create a new kind of story, one where all beings have access to clean water and to something equally essential–an open, giving heart.

To learn to give fully, we must first learn to fully receive. Why is this so easy to forget? As we fill up and begin to see ourselves as part of something greater, our hearts overflow with Love. This is the nourishment the world is waiting for, and without knowing, it’s what I was most thirsty for when I arrived.

So, yes, I came to Tulum to deliver water filters, and apparently, I came for a nourishing drink of connection, too.

Mmmmmm. Delicious. I want more!

What does your heart thirst for?

-Sora Garrett is a Life Simplification Guide, author of The Miracle Keys, and one of the first travel team leaders for The Waterbearers. She also leads women on inner-space adventures to help them clear their minds, open their hearts, and remove the excess clutter from their physical spaces.