Josh Martin

I woke up inside my mosquito net drenched in sweat. It was 6:00 am and it was only going to get hotter in the Liberian refugee camp where I had been volunteering in Ghana for the past month. Dragging my sleepy body out of bed, I made my way to the concrete shower stall at the back of the cement and tin structure that served as the guest house for volunteers. Lifting the lid off the plastic barrel I saw that it was empty and realized that Thomas had not yet been by to draw water by hand out of the reservoir next to the house.

Forgoing a shower, I entered the kitchen and grabbed a bag of water from the pile next to the door and notice that it too was getting low. As volunteers, we had water delivered to us on a regular basis, which was good considering how thirsty we always were in that stifling, tropical heat.

I saved some of my water, grabbed my toothbrush and went outside to scrub the ol’ pearly whites. Thomas had arrived by this time and I watched him grunt and strain as he filled the barrels full of water that would be used for showering, flushing toilets and cooking. Two refugees sat on the concrete pad beside the reservoir, scrubbing and cleaning our bed sheets by hand. Realizing that I forgot to add my sheets to the pile, I quickly dashed back inside and gave the cheerful women my sweat-soaked linens with a sheepish smile. Sheets are only washed on Wednesdays, and I didn’t think I could bear going another full week without having them cleaned.

Slathering on a healthy layer of sunscreen, I grabbed my hat and headed out for the office of the NGO I am volunteering for. Along the way I saw things that had shocked me the first week or so but by now were familiar sights. Little girls squat in the dirt street and urinate, mothers mercilessly scrub their naked boys with small buckets of soapy water, grown men and women return from “the gulf” – a wooded area on the outskirts of camp now used as a public latrine.

I meet the Water and Sanitation crew, which is made up of local refugee volunteers and two other international volunteers – an American and an Australian. We grab our meager tools (two shovels between the seven of us, a bucket with a gaping hole in the bottom of it, and a rickety wheel-barrow that barely functions on the beat up roads of camp). We head to Zone 10 where we are digging a well that will be used by the community at no charge.

The day is long and progress is slow. With our limited resources we dig down into the earth until with great relief and excitement, we hit water. We continue to dig, periodically stopping to empty the water from the hole that has built up so we can go a little deeper. I am bailing the water out into the dirt surrounding our well when one of the local volunteers tells us to stop. A neighbour has come by with plastic buckets of her own, clearly unimpressed that I’m wasting the water I was bailing from the hole.

It would be another couple of weeks before the well is complete, and even then, the water the community drew from it would not be suitable for drinking – only washing and perhaps some cooking.

I return to the guest house that afternoon with a sunburned neck and some fierce blisters on my hands. After a day of back-breaking labour in the relentless heat, we had managed to fill a bucket of muddy water for a grateful local.

I make my way to the shower and am pleased to see there is still some water left in the barrel that Thomas had filled that morning. Drawing a small pail of it from the barrel, I step into the concrete stall and begin the refreshing ritual of pouring the cool water over my body with a banged up plastic ladle.

The sun sets quickly in this part of the world and very soon I am off to bed.

When I wake up I am back at my apartment in Canada. I hop out of bed and jump into the shower where I turn up the heat and let the warm water wash over me. Fifteen minutes later I turn the water off, get dressed and head to the kitchen for breakfast. I prepare a big jug of orange juice, refill the water filter, and fill the sink full so I can wash the dishes I had neglected from the night before. With the dishes done I grab a basket full of dirty clothes and throw a load of laundry into the washing machine on the ground floor. Returning to my apartment, I return to the bathroom to brush my teeth and shave, all the while leaving the faucet running. I use the toilet, flush it, and throw another load of laundry into the washing machine downstairs.

An hour after I wake up, I have used more water than my Liberian friends will use in a week. In the land of excess, we take so much for granted. As consumers we must recognize the fact that our reality is not the reality for the majority of the world. Being conscious of our mass consumerism is the first step toward reconnecting ourselves with important world issues.
For water saving tips, you can visit Environment Canada’s Water Efficiency/Conservation website or read the Water article available on this site.