One of the most important issues in the world today hardly gets any press - water rights, the privatization of water and the lack of clean drinking water for a large portion of the population. Without water, we have no life.
Living in New England, especially after the most rainy spring in decades, it is easy to take water for granted. Only for a short while in high summer do droughts occasionally occur, and towns limit lawn watering to every other day. Someone living in Arizona or California should naturally have a bit more respect for water - although the way they build golf courses out there, it is not always the case.
But no matter how rainy or dry it is where you live, everyone should have a very healthy respect for water. Funny enough, the night I watched the movie our tap water turned brown due to the town flushing out the pipes. Instantly, we did not want to drink or bathe in the light brown water, and happened to have two bottles of water in the fridge we could drink in the meantime. But this is where the problem lies - for although your area may be rich in water, many companies are bottling water, common tap water, and selling it all over the world at very high prices. Folks in Minnesota noticed their streams, creeks and ground water levels decline when Nestle Waters moved in and started pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons a day. In essence, Nestle is taking water for free that should belong to the people, and selling it back to them at exorbitant prices.
But that is not even close to the worst case- multinational companies that privatize water systems are actually depriving people of water around the world, selling substandard water back to people who can't afford to pay for it. These people must then resort to using polluted water, and many of them die from water bourne bacteria. In Bolivia there were riots for many years against the water privitazation that was forced upon them by the world bank - just a few years ago the people won and were given back the right to control their own water.
In Peru, strikes against the privatization of water have been frequent - in fact, on our honeymoon my husband and I saw one in the square in Cusco. Many farmers and peasants, a lot of them looking quite nervous, marched in the Plaza de Armas. Police and soldiers lined the edges of the Plaza, keeping an eye on the march. The people put rocks in the road on the way to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu to stop tourists from getting to the site and draw attention to their cause. Thankfully (for us), the strike was only one day long and we were able to travel to Olantaytambo and start our Inka Trail adventure the next day. We did see the remnants of the rocks in the street however, and out bus driver really had to be careful and swerve around debris still in the road. Hopefully, the power of the people can stop the impending destruction that one of these water companies would cause.
Water is such an important part of every human being's life, and should be free and clean for all as nature intended. See FLOW and you will be reminded of what is most important in life - and makes up 70% of YOU!
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