First post-Sofia Wildvine

Poor Lakshmi suffers in so many tragic ways. One of the many hardships of her life is the shortage of water and the water pollution.  The women in Nepal must haul water in baskets back to their hut several times a day. According to the Asian Development Bank, each trip can take more than two hours. On page 20 Lakshmi tells the reader, "Ama and I must make twenty trips down the mountain to the village spring, waiting our turn to bring water up to the rice paddy." This is the exact opposite of the luxury that we have; simply turning a metal handle and out comes flowing water, even heated. From pages 19 to 26, Lakshmi describes the horror of the "dry season". On page 21 she describes, "Today the village headman announced that they will ration water. Tonight Ama and I scrub the cooking vessels clean with a mixture of earth and ash." This description is a tragic reality. According to Water Crisis in the Nepal Himalayas, written by Dr. Suresh Das Shrestha, families in the mountains have to do with less than 5 liters per capita per day. The average person in the USA uses 700 liters. I can't imagine only using only 5 liters and all the compromises they must make involving water usage. This leads to the pollution of the slim amount of water. The uncontrolled dumping of wastes into flowing streams has turned the Himlayan waters into giant sewers. Lakshmi mentioned how common it is for children and babies to die from disease. 80% of the country's illness is due to contaminated water. It is so depressing to think that about this reality, and that these cruel lifestyles truly exist in too many parts of the world. In general, people in first world countries are either ignorant, blind, or in denial that these conditions exist. I wish that I could pop everyone's bubble that shields them from the truth and start helping those in need.