Water for Life...from all of us

Last night Bill and I watched the Madonna Malawi documentary, I Am Because We Are, a work of art that scours the soul. Among the poorest countries in the world, Malawi is home to some 1 million orphans—children fending for themselves and for one another in a dusty, AIDS-afflicted world. Their struggles to live, to learn are here, in this film. So is their evanescence, their odds-defying radiance.

You can't watch a film like that without being moved to do something. This morning, in honor of all of us bloggers who clearly care about children and their future, I've again turned to the exquisite organization, Pump Aid, which, through its Elephant Pump technology, provides clean water to rural Malawi and Zimbabwe, in environmentally thoughtful fashion. Clean water helps to prevent disease. It nurtures gardens. It feeds communities. It affords hope. Pump Aid, the organization, allows those of us living here, in our comfortable homes, to do something.

Someday soon, through what is, in the scheme of things, a modest donation, a water-rich garden will flourish in rural Africa. A garden that feeds 250. That will be our garden, we bloggers. Seeds that we together planted.

Finally, the image here is a photo I took in the squatter's village known as Anapra, in Juarez, Mexico, where my fourth novel, The Heart is not a Size (Winter 2010), takes place. I have not myself traveled to Malawi. Last night's film made me wonder how and if I someday could.