Water matters. Here's why.

 Yeah, this is only tangentially related to the subject of this post, but it's Wolowitz!

Today is Day 4 of my birthday week of running! I've made it through 20 of my planned 35 miles. My quads and calves, however, were left behind somewhere around mile 13 and I'm not sure I'll ever see them again. Eh, who needs 'em?

As I've been running I've been asking people to please consider donating to a nonprofit called Blood: Water Mission, a group whose stated aim is "Empowering communities to work together against the HIV/AIDS and water crises in Africa." As of this morning, I've raised $190 of my $350 goal, and thank you, thank, THANK YOU to those people who have given! For those who are a little more curious as to what B:WM does, what the "water crisis" is, and why I chose to raise money for this specifically, here's some information.

For those of us in the developed world, it's strange to even think of water - where it comes from, the process of cleaning it, and the effort it takes to get from "there" to "here." But for many, many people in the world, clean, safe, drinkable water is a daily struggle. Some facts:
- 700 million people in the world lack access to clean water. That's about 10% of the world's population and 2 and 1/2 times the population of the US.
- 3.4 million people die every year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Almost all of these deaths occur in the developing world . . . which tells us that these deaths are largely preventable.
- Over 800,000 children under the age of 5 die every year from diarrhea-related causes. This works out to more that 2,000 children per day. It's estimated that 88% of diarrhea-related deaths are caused directly by a lack of clean water and sanitation.
- The average person (almost always a woman or child) in Africa walks about 3 miles a day to get to a water source, and carries about 10 pounds of water in each trip. This could add up to 7 hours of work a day . . . for water.
- A 5-minute shower uses more water than a person in the developing world will use in an entire day.
(All the above from various sources including the CDC, UNICEF, WHO, and Water.org)

I'm not here to preach - I promise! But water matters and most of us in the developed world never think of it. So think about water today, be thankful for it, and remember those people around the world who don't have it.

Happy running!