The Tao of Water

I am an amateur blogger. 
I am a professional humanitarian aid worker in the water sector.
I am thus obliged to participate in this here incredible extravaganza called “Blog Action Day 2010 Water.” 

But don’t think I do so begrudgingly.  To save the world, you have to focus and today that focus fits me pretty well.

* * *

Water is simple: three atoms, two elements, one small molecule.

Add another molecule and those tricky little hydrogen bonds start complicating things. Water doesn’t behave the way it should. Water is subversive. Little rascal. And that is precisely what makes it important.

Add solutes, energy, people and the rest of the world and water gets complicated. Very complicated. Very quickly. And very important.

* * *

A link poem
(But don’t let the links distract you just yet…)

Water is or is not
accessible, distributed, shared,
contaminated, cleaned, protected,
managed, exploited, recycled,
used.

Water creates or controls
diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition, 
HIV, health, bodies,
food, animals, products, energy,
productivity, livelihoods, economics,
life.

Water detains or develops
women’s choices, education, social structures,
religion, land issues, conflicts, wars,
politics, corruption, human rights,
history.

Water is oceans, tsunamis, floods and droughts, climate change.

Water is simply
part of a complex
violent, calm, deplorable, luxurious
system of which we are
a small part.

 
*  *  *

Words on a blog are linear. Water is not linear.

If you spread out all those words in a circle on the floor, take colored string or paint or sand, and started connecting each idea to all those others with which it has a relationship, you would end up with incredible art, perhaps a mandala, about water. One day I will do this.

* * *

Today, I will let others take you on the journey through those ideas. Although I am qualified, I will let others explain and expand on that simple list of words. I will let others cite numbers and statistics.

Get out of your pool (so you don't ruin the computer), sit in the shade (so you can see the screen) and follow links and learn about water and the world in which we live.

Trust me, water shapes your world and a world bigger than yours. Those iron-sheeting shacks, those mud-pressed-in-sticks huts, those billion slum/desert/jungle dwelling worlds aren’t so far from yours.

(But please, please, I beg you… remember two things: Hiesenberg and Bias).

* * *

Today, my contribution will be an introduction to the Tao of Water.

You have probably heard of the Tao Te Chieng. It is a series of 81 chapters of (sometimes cryptic, always relevant) Chinese wisdom compiled around 500 B.C. in which water is a reoccurring theme (my bias).

In chapters 8, 15, 32, 36, 39, 43, 61, 66 and 78, water or its properties are mentioned.

8:
Higher good is like water: the good in water benefits all, and does so without contention. It rests where people dislike to be, so it is close to the Way.
Where it dwells becomes good ground;

15:
…their relaxation was as that of ice at the melting point. Simple as uncarved wood, open as valleys, they were inscrutable as murky water.
Who can, in turbidity,
use the gradual clarification of stillness?

32:

Heaven and earth combine, thus showering sweet dew. No humans command it; it is even by nature.
The Way is to the world as rivers and oceans to valley streams.

36:
This is called subtle illumination. Flexible and yielding overcome adamant coerciveness.

39:
When unity was attained of old, heaven became clear by attaining unity
valley streams were filled by attaining unity…
What brought this about was unity:
without means of clarity, heaven may burst; without means of steadiness, earth may erupt; without means of quickening, spirit may be exhausted; without means of filling,
valley streams may dry up,

43:
What is softest in the world drives what is hardest in the world.

61:
A great nation flows downward into intercourse with the world.

66:
The reason why rivers and seas can be lords of the hundred valleys is that they lower themselves to them all;

78:
Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it.

(Translations used without permission, although I have indeed purchased the book from which they came and recommend it as a nice translation. From THE ESSENTIAL TAO - Translated and presented by Thomas Cleary)

* * *

Words to live by. Literally.

I hope you enjoy Blog Action Day about water. I hope you let the links destract you.

I hope you stick around and check out my adventures and adventrues.

I hope you leave a comment. Do you have a link that might fit in my poem? Did I miss a water reference in the Tao?

* * *

End note 1

In doing what I do, I work in a broader field than just water. We have a nifty acronym: WASH. This stands for water, sanitation and hygiene (though I try as much as I can to get even boarder than that). As a wild WASH woman, it is my duty to also share with you some related news about today, October 15, 2010:

Today is also Global Handwashing Day.

Handwashing is important. It the most cost effective way to prevent diarrhea (Lancet). More so than clean water. Admittably, water helps in washing hands… (although when you are in the dessert, rubbing your hands with dirt and sand can also clean them), but don’t get me started on handwashing, just check out some of the interesting stuff online. (Just remember Hiesenberg and bias as you read.)

* * *

End note 2

“I am an expert.”  (hits television…)

I have asked you readers to trust my qualifications, to trust that I know what I am talking about, to trust I have some authority to blog about water and that maybe my links here are “good” ones. In fact, I do.
I don’t mean to sound egotisitical (although sometimes I play that game here in blog-land), and in fact I am quite humble and insecure.

“…and thorough.”

My point is not my personality, but rather if you don’t trust me (and why should you?), drop a comment and I’ll send you my CV (especially if you want to hire me).

Happy World Water Day 2010

'Tis the season... for a bunch of links. World Water Day 2010.

World Water Day is also know in some circles as World Whiskey Day. But honestly, the logic is a bit questionable...After you drink whiskey in order to save water, you are going to need a lot of water to get over your de-hydrating hangover.

Seriously... I won't quote you statistics (but I will link to some) but let me make 2 points:
People die from diseases linked to water.
People die fighting over water.

So again, I remind you that to save the world you need to focus.

Who doesn't love national geographic? I sure do...
National Geographic special issue on freshwater (March 2010)
I have been waiting for this issue on the edge of my seat... (yes, I am a dork.)

If you feel the need for statistics and sound bites:
Numbers Galore from Water.org
(I do not endorse Water.org for donations - of course I do not NOT endorse them - I just have no idea if they are reputable in terms of serving people with your money. They just have a nice list of numbers. If you want recommendations on where to donate money then ask me - but that is not my point here.)

I will write something more personal on water, but that will not appear here today, on World Water Day.

Good bye Afghanistan

Last thoughts on Afghanistan:

Watched the snow road block and fall
smelled the river from far too far
while others rushed and resigned to crawl
and irrigate almond lands
burqua eyes blind to mine
i lived outside them all.

...........................

So I am a bit late (as always) but then that's fine. So I was so sad to leave Afghanistan,
but I think my dad was pretty happy that I am gone...

Mario too was happy to go, but I know it was bittersweet for him and parts of it he loved... like Ghor where we spent a romanic week. (As romantic as Taiwara can get).

Back in December - We flew out praying it wouldn't snow. And it did - but not enough to keep us down. Too many memories to tell you here....

But we had time for one good party.... actually i am cheating this picture is Ophelie, from quite a while ago...

Taiwara

"On the road again,

goin' places that I've never been

Seein' things that I may never see again,

And I can't wait to get on the road again."

- Willie

Trayle is takin' ova!
Taiwara district is in Ghor province, in central Afghanistan. It is pronounced like you would say "whore." We have a great WASH program there, but no expats had visited for over a year. Matteo, the Head of Mission and I had the pleasure of going in June... And it was SUPER!
Hills are red and yellow and green!

We flew first to Chagcharan, the capitol of Ghor spelled Ghwor on Google Earth, by Beechcraft airplane and then we drove for 8 hours to Taiwara, a district in the south. We drove and drove and we reached the top of a big hill to get out and rest (and pee). This hill was in the middle of no where, nothing to see for miles and miles. Wahkil, the logistics and administrator for the Taiwara base and our guide, announced this was the last place there was phone coverage. So we all had fun making calls. I called my dad, said hi and chatted about investing money. Totally surreal at the end of the world.

Coming into "downtown" Taiwara. Oh the hills are alive with color.

Villages are small and filled with mud houses and compounds. River run through as this year is a good year in Ghor. Lot's of water after 8 years of draought.

I just love this photo, taken by Matteo. The men are the program manager, Taher, and a local elder. Of course nothing captures the biggness like being there.
Here's the team, Taher, Abdullah (with his hands in the well) and Matteo, fixing a broken pump we found as we surveyed the water points.
This may be the only forrest in Afghanistan. Not really, just the only one I have seen. That is Abdullah with me. It is so unbelievibly green for this raw country. The results of this good rain year. After a long walk through the only woods I've ever seen in Afghanistan, we ate some tasty apricots. Afghanistan grows a lot of apricots.
So there are some images of the last region in which we work here in Afgha! You have seen Kabul, Hazerajat and Ghor! what a beautiful place. Maybe some more creativity to come, but with this workload I just am getting by....

Hazerajat - Day Kundi Province

Typical Hazerajat village in a valley.

Can you see the irrigation channels?

View from the roof of the compound at sundown.

spring time

Ahhh. The field at last – out of Kabul and into Afghanistan. Started in a helicopter! What fun, a great sensation, but once you get going just like a small plane really, but louder. They do a small test where we were hovering just feet above the ground, then start going. It is like being in a loud box, pulled by a big crane over the sky.

From Kabul we landed in Bamian, where the big buddas are. Left from long ago, and destroyed throughout the history (that I know so poorly that I dare not try to tell). From the helipad there you can see millions of caves – small simple holes to great big budda shaped things, 10 stories tall. Really amazing. I would like to return for longer than 30 minutes at the airport. There is a project there to rebuild the buddas, and until they are built to replace them with lazers that outline where they once were in some sort of cool effects. Nice idea. Until you realize where you are talking about and that maybe lazers are a waste of money considering... well a lot of things. But it is art and it is politically incorrect to criticize art.

So we take off again and bob along through mountains, snow covered but melting. Rock colors changing from red to grey to green to black, melted by erosion, each tint spilling down the valleys in inverted triangles from the topmost layers into those below. Some places are wet, giving away the hiding places of springs as they themselves spill through the grounds, leaving a saturated patch running down the side of the hills.

We turn a corner mountain and there are wide spaces of granitic rock, flaking away like Desolation wilderness, cracked and chiseled by ice wedging and worn away by spring rains and winds. Grey and rounded, cracked into unbelievable shapes, with holes and caves. There are pockets of green crops (wheat, I know) and fruit and nut trees (apricots and almonds) now and you can see the miles and miles of irrigation chanels.

We land and I am met by some of the local team and head back to the base. Two other expats and my engineer are still on the way, they came by plane (little tiny Cesna) leaving two hours before my helicopter, but the airstrip is 5 hours away. We drive to the base- up and down and up and down about 15 minutes only but incredible turns. The base is simple, one office, one bedroom for the girls and one for the boys. 2 tents inside full of stock, a third full of fuel and a large blue water tank. We have a land line, we have radios and several thurayas for communication. No internet… yet.

Fixing the generator in paradise.

I am in Nili.

To do internet, you climb the hill behind the compound (quite a feat at 2200 meters, I am all out of breath) and then there are 2 metal boxes, shipping crates to be precise, and a huge satellite dish. See the photo. You enter one of the boxes, one has a desk and the other does not. You sit on the floor with your laptop in front of a big server beeping like Hal on top of an Afghan hill surrounded by snow capped peaks and the sun sets, putting it all on fire. And the server keeps beeping.

Watsan equipement in paradise.

Goats and sheeps hangin' on the hillside.

Gaurd, Driver and my Engineer fixin' a mean Kabob.

We had a barbeeque day at the river.

The watsan team in the field. Kickin' ass as usual. The road was bad. We had to walk the last half a kilometer or so to the village we were assessing.But this man was happy for the visit.

urban spawl

Urban Sprawl

This is a link to a nice article that sheds a bit of light on the water and sanitation situation in Kabul...

Kabul copes with lots of people, little water
Afghans see a possible livelihood in the city, despite its crumbling infrastructure.
By Mark Sappenfield Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor