Don't Drink the Water

I live in one of the 30 communities, one of the 700,000 households, affected by the water main break in Weston, MA on May 1st.  I am one of 2 million people affected.  I have been boiling water for 4 days. 

Today the ban was lifted.

Over the past few days, I have realized how lucky we are.  Yes, this was a frustrating, time consuming situation at times, but it was temporary. A State of Emergency was even issued and help came to us quickly.  When we couldn't find water at the many nearby stores which we could drive to in our cars, we just boiled some on our gas stove and poured it into our pitchers which we put into our refrigerator to chill.

Every day, all over the world, people walk miles to the nearest water source carrying their jugs and their children, often through unsafe areas.  When they get to the water source, they fill their jugs themselves and most of the time the water isn't even clean.  Some times the children and other people are bathing in the water source as the adults are collecting water from it.  Then they walk miles back to their homes and repeat the journey the next day.

1.6 million people die from unclean water every year.

5,000 children die from unclean water every day.

We can all do somethings about this:
Global Water
Charity: Water
A Child's Right
World Health Organization
Water for the Ages