Today I walked in the Portland Walk for Water. All the money raised will go to Portland Global Initiatives, which will team up with World Vision to provide safe water for schools in Rwanda.
Nathan and I got there a bit early. We registered and had almost an hour to wait until the walk started. Luckily there were some interesting booths to look at. I got to speak with a woman about World Vision, and some of her child sponsorship stories as well as her work with Water Africa, another local organization that partners with World Vision to provide safe water for people in Zambia. Nathan got to learn how to make safe toilets in case of an emergency or disaster. We also just got to enjoy the beautiful sunshine on the waterfront. It was a beautiful morning.
The walk started at OMSI. We crossed the Hawthorne bridge, and walked along the waterfront. Under the Morrison Bridge, we were given five gallon buckets to carry. Each one was filled with about two gallons of water. Even just two gallons of water got really heavy really fast. I couldn’t imagine doing five gallons. If I didn’t hold the bucket just right, water would slosh out. I kept thinking about each drop being precious…and about the fact that for some people, that would be all the water they’d have….for everything….
We carried the water buckets down to the Steel Bridge where we crossed back over to the East side, and walked back to OMSI. We carried the water for a little over two miles, and the total walk was 3.1 miles. I was very glad to get the experience, but saddened that so many people must go through that every day instead of getting education or work. How can the cycle of poverty be broken if one must spend hours a day fetching water?
I’m glad I got to participate in this event, and I hope to do more as the year goes on.