Keeping the Peace

My husband, son, and I spent yesterday at an inn along the Delaware River—just the three of us watching the last of the lemon-colored leaves fall. Everything seemed hushed, out where we were. Nothing urgent or pressing, just old autumn color (which is antique color) and sky.

I would like to believe that I can keep the peace that I found out there alive. That it won't dissolve itself inside the rush toward Christmas, that I can, this year, avoid that rush. Driving home I wondered how my friends would feel if my holiday gift to them were something they might never see—an elephant pump, I'm thinking, installed somewhere in Zimbabwe on behalf of school children and their families. One pump can bring water up from the earth for 500 people, I've read. It can do that sustainably, changing the health and welfare equation, sprouting gardens, teaching children science, their parents hope. A British organization called Pump Aid makes it possible to sit right where I am and to do this sort of good, and why not make this the gift of the year? A pump in the name of my friends: It seems like the right thing to do.

So I'm thinking about that, and if you too are interested in helping to replenish one small fraction of the earth in this way, I encourage you to go to this web site, and read.

http://www.pumpaid.org/