Water. How thoughtlessly we open our taps and let it run and run and run. Not realizing how precious every drop of this life-giving element is! Water is the most important fuel for both our body and our brain. Wake-up to how water is at the center of energy in our world. When last did you think about water? Those of us who are blessed enough to have access to the Internet hardly give water a second thought. We take it for granted: We drink it. We wash with it. We water our gardens. We wash our two or more cars. We run a deep, hot bath every day... Read on to find out why water is so worth so much more than what we think!
Do you ever think about the fact that water is the cause for some of the major wars going on in our world right now? Not having water is a huge problem for millions of people in Africa, India, China and other parts of the world. In fact, if you follow some of the discussions online and in the media, you will soon pick up that the need for water is the greatest potential for conflict in the next fifty years.
Before I talk about the importance of water for our energy levels, I first want to tell you two stories about how water affects people's lives and the way people from different cultures and social levels relate to water.
The first story is just a snapshot that stuck in my mind when I was working on a consulting contract for a bank in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2004. I describe Lagos as 'New York without the infrastructure'. The same kind of incredible high level of human energy that you find in New York, you will experience in Lagos. But Lagos has an edge, a sense of the sheer vulnerability of humanity, that you won't find in New York.
When I first got to Lagos, what made the most impression on me is the fact that so many people are living their lives and carrying their businesses out on the street. No one really knows how many people live in Lagos, but the government estimate stands at 17 million. Lagos itself is potentially one of the most beautiful cities on earth: it is spread out across a number of islands in an inland lake that connects to the Atlantic ocean. The islands used to be connected by a number of bridges. Seven, if I remember correctly. These bridges were built in the '70s mainly by engineers from the USA, when the oil boom struck Nigeria. When I was there in 2004, only two of these bridges were still in use. The others had collapsed under the sheer weight of traffic: cars and pedestrian.
So imagine that picture with 17 million people on these islands and not having any shared services. Well, there is a government electricity service provider, but the way the electricity is distributed must make it impossible to run that operation effectively. The streets are lined with electricity poles sticking up into the air and from each a nest of 'informal' wires taps electricity off the main line, creating a netted ceiling between the maelstrom of people on the streets and the blue sky above.
If you have money in Lagos, you live like royalty. And the bankers I was working with were among the local 'royalty'. So I had the benefit of being driven through this sea of human bodies in a car with blacked-out windows. I initially assumed that this was for security reasons. But then I realized that it was to help the ones sitting inside the car to avoid the begging eyes of the masses outside! Young guys who had lost the ability to walk because of childhood Polio were criss-crossing the packed highways and roads on skate-boards, reaching up to the car windows and trying to sell mobile phone airtime cards. This was no mean feat, knowing that the bridge and other highways which were built for three lanes, were packed with five to six cars navigating nimbly past one another's side mirrors! Other people - mainly young men, but also a few women - were forming a never-ending mobile, human supermarket: walking in between the cars and carrying everything from an ironing board to the hugely popular Made-in-Nollywood DVD movie series.
If you are wealthy in Lagos, you don't rely on government or the city to supply you with anything. You simply organize your life. Every beautiful mansion I was invited to had its own boreholes, filter-system, sewage recycling system and generator. The 'masses out there', however, had to walk next to open sewers running along all streets. These sewers wash across the roads when the rains come. Individual traders next to the road or even at the huge markets each carried their own generator along. And water is sold in little sealed plastic bags on every street corner. Everywhere the eye could see were people selling things, jumping on and off the 'Motorbike Taxi's', where you hitch a ride on the back of a motorbike for a couple of cents and generally going about living on the street.
In the middle of this human beehive my mind suddenly took a snapshot of a beautiful little girl, four or five years old, in a muddy red dress, running barefoot across the road, gingerly avoiding the oncoming traffic, a number of large potholes and some sewage lying on the road. In her hands she was balancing three small sealed plastic bags filled with... water. The sun was shining from behind, so the water-filled plastic bags shone like over-sized diamonds in the little 'princess'' hands... It was this image, more than anything else I saw in Lagos, that made me feel as if I had just been hit in the gut! This little girl had just risked her life to fetch what amounted to probably about one litre of water. I saw her running towards a woman huddled against the side of the street, nursing an infant in the middle all this. Maybe her mother.
This picture has stayed with me ever since: the daily reality of so many million people, especially women and children, who are generally tasked with the burden of fetching water - whether in a busy city or walking miles across rural farmlands.
The other story is about the group of unemployed youth that I started working with in a remote part of deep rural South Africa. The non-profit organization I assist had received a grant to pilot a youth leadership and entrepreneurship programme, which I was going to present. Before the first group of youth came to the 'Youth Camp' facility owned by the non-profit organization in question, I emphasized to the two Youth Development Officers, that were coordinating the registration of the participants to please make sure that every young person brought an own towel. The 'Youth Camp' had bedding, but no towels.
On the first morning of the first group arriving, I asked the youth at breakfast to go to their rooms to fetch their towels and to meet me on the lawn in the sun outside the main workshop hall. I wanted to start the day with some stretch-and-strength exercises, which required lying down on the grass and the grass was still wet from the morning dew. I was met with apprehensive looks. 'What is the problem?' I asked. The one Youth Development Officer came to me and whispered: 'I think they don't have towels.'
'Why didn't you bring any towels?'I demanded to know from the group. 'We said we will provide everything else, all you needed to bring were towels! What do you use for drying yourselves after having a shower then?' Again, my eyes met with puzzled stares. At last one of the youth explained: "We use our facecloths." Immediately it dawned on me what he had just said: in their homes, water was a very scarce resource. No hot water running from taps there! Water would be heated in a pot, then poured into a bucket for washing. Using a facecloth, the body would first be washed, then, with the facecloth wrung dry, it would be dried. That is why they didn't need towels! I hadn't told them that they should bring towels for the exercise session. They simply assumed that they were necessary for the showers and then they didn't need any.
I felt deeply humbled, but also my respect for these young people, who were all very well groomed and well dressed immediately rocketed!
Why am I telling you these two stories? Because they have something in common. Both the little girl in the red dress in Lagos, and this group of unemployed youth in my workshop had learned to use water wisely - something all of us will have to do over the next couple of years. They already know that water is the most precious resource God has given us on Earth. Without water, there is no life!
Now let me just summarize some of the statistics about water, that you probably have learned but forgotten already:
- Roughly 70 percent of an adult's body is made up of water. At birth, about 80 percent of the baby's weight is really the weight of water in its body. Our bodies need to be hydrated enough if we want them to perform at peak.
- If we want to stay healthy, we need to drink enough water. If we want our brains to function properly, we need to drink enough water. If we want our energy-levels to be consistently high, we need to drink enough water. What is enough? That depends on your own body. But drinking a glass of water, or herbal tea every hour is a good idea!
- Avoid coffee, tea and soft drinks: while made up almost entirely of water, they also contain caffeine. Caffeine can act as a mild diuretic, preventing water from traveling to necessary locations in the body. Also, the temptation of taking sugar and the sugar in soft drinks is where many diets fail, many teeth are lost and the acid created by sugar in our bodies is the reason for far too many diseases. Appreciate and enjoy pure water!
- Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Wherever it travels, water carries chemicals, minerals, and nutrients with it. This is why water is so important to our brain function: if we want to remain alert and have our full power of concentration, we need to make sure there is enough water in our body, so that the necessary minerals and vitamins can reach our brains to function. Water is the fuel of the brain. You don't fill up a petrol car with diesel. Our body needs water, not alcohol or caffeine. Fill up with the right fuel!
- The earth is a closed system, meaning that it rarely loses or gains extra matter, unless some 'stars' drop from heaven. The same water that existed on the earth millions of years ago is still present today. But the number of people living has increased from 791 million people worldwide in 1750 to 6.775 billion in 2009 and is growing daily. That is why water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. Treat it with respect.
- The total amount of water on the earth is about 1,335 million cubic kilometers of water. Of all this water, humans can use only about 0,3% (4 million cubic meters) of this water. Such usable water is found in groundwater aquifers, rivers, and freshwater lakes. But currently, highly industrialized nations use up this water at an alarmingly high rate and new deserts are growing across the world. Get informed and make a choice to save water and energy by switching from full, hot baths every day to short, cool showers. Keep the hot bath as a special treat once in a while!
- Flushing the toilet actually takes up the largest amount of the water that people living Western lifestyles use. We are literally flushing our most valuable resource down the drain! Install water-saving devices to use less water. Or if you need to renovate your bathroom, choose a toilet with a water-saving option. In most cases, placing a brick in the cistern will reduce the amount of water you need for flushing considerably! And while you're at it: save water by making sure that there is not a single leaking tap in your home or garden.
- The weight a person loses directly after intense physical activity is weight from water, not fat. Stay rehydrated and keep on moving. Eventually you will lose the fat you want to lose and your body will be much healthier because of the higher water-intake!
- Water contains no fats, no proteins, no carbohydrates and therefore no calories or kilojoules. So you can drink as much as you like!
- There are no health advantages to drinking expensive bottled water instead of tap water from the public water supply. Save your money for other, more important things.
I'm making you aware of this information, because I hope that you will become more aware and make everyone around you more aware of what it means to open that tap: imagine every drop to be a drop of expensive French Perfume. And use water with the same sense of reverence.
Just a last note: Nico, my husband, is an architect who used to be responsible for planning health facilities (hospitals and clinics) for South Africa. He had a large budget for this - more than a billion South African Rand per year. At some point he said that he would rather spend all of his budget on ensuring that rural, poor communities have access to clean drinking water and most of the diseases would disappear and with them the need for expensive clinic and hospital facilities! The same applies for your health: if you drink enough water, your body gets cleaned inside-out and you will avoid most diseases that result in expensive hospital bills. Again, water is life!
In teaching the unemployed youth I work with, I encourage them to carry with them at all times a plastic bottle of water and to drink this whenever they are thirsty. If we do this, our level of energy remains high and we can be much more alive, confident and productive!
So, from now on, in your journey of creating more love, greater beauty and increasing abundance for all, start with keeping yourself beautiful inside and out: don't just have a shower in the morning, also drink a glass of water immediately when you get up. Make it a habit to keep a bottle of tap water in your handbag and drink water whenever you feel tired, have a headache or low energy. Don't take an aspirin or buy a chocolate bar: just drink your water. You'll be surprised at how much better you feel!
And then make it a habit to treat water with respect and teach everyone around you to enjoy water to drink throughout the day and to respect it too! If you know that access to water is a problem in a neighbouring community, try to find a way to help. Making sure there is clean water and that people know to boil water before using it for drinking or cooking is maybe the best contribution you could make to improving the lives of poor communities in your area.
Read more about water on the Internet. Here are just three sites:
