The Adventure of #4Liters

This post is a follow-up to my #4Liters experience last week. Read more about the challenge here.

More than a week later, I return to you a thirsty woman. After only three days of living on only 4 liters of water, I was ready for unlimited coffees, gallons of water, and the longest shower ever. I felt a little bit like Viola Davis, smelling so bad I was convulsing people and singing "I get to take a shower, I get to take a shower!"  

I took up the challenge, as I said in my previous post, because the water crisis is a very real and solvable issue. I'm very eager to see a dent made in our lifetime, and I believe, with the proper awareness, it's 100% possible. However, though I only committed to three days of 4 liters, I definitely was struggling by the end. Because I live with a housemate and because I attend school in a public establishment with real toilets, I elected to always flush toilets and ignore that water used from my daily total, as a courtesy to those around me. People may have complained that I had too many unwashed dishes and that I smelled like a marathon runner, but perhaps they didn't realize the service I was doing for them by flushing the toilet!

I've had to brush my teeth from a water bottle before, but I've never had to think about the water in my unlimited number of coffees or teas every day. I've never had to measure the water in my shower, and I've never even considered the water in my washing machine. In Ireland, we don't even get water bills because water is so abundant. I received eye rolls, dismissive "oh"s, and laughter from most people when I told them why I was bringing an almost empty water bottle into the bathroom to wash my hands. 

But for every few sarcastic jabs, I received one interested "Why?" And almost all of these "Why?"s donated to my campaign. I reached my fundraising goal and then some, and I've never felt so supported. It's one thing to support a friend when she needs it; but it's something entirely different to support a friend when she receives nothing from it. The idea of supporting my fundraising campaign is easily dismissible if one doesn't agree with the cause, doesn't see the point, etc. But to have so many people support me was truly incredible. 

Living on 4 Liters of water for a day is ridiculous. It requires a lot of creativity, patience, and support. You can't really prepare for it; you'll get some funny, some frustrating, some ridiculous stories from it. You'll realize who some of your best friends are, you'll make some enemies at the coffee shop when you ask them to use the remainder of water in your bottle to make your espresso. But it's an experience worth doing. It will change the way you think of water, and it will hopefully inspire others to help make a change.

Water bottle + teethbrushing= super fun

I tried to get a girl to help me with this picture so I could be seen actually washing my hands. She didn't help...

Preserving water: drinking hot chocolate. Poor me ;)

#4Liters

Dear readers,

When I started running last year, I decided that a good way to make sure I kept up with it was to involve a favorite charity or two. For every mile of training I ran, I would donate one dollar to the Livestrong Foundation (which with my tiny mileage was really quite pitiful- it was a good incentive to run longer!). And for every race I entered, I would donate half of my registration fee to Water.org, a charity run (literally) by athletes to raise awareness for water poverty around the world.

I have personal reasons for being interested in both of these foundations. Both the access to good resources for cancer fighters and the access to clean water around the world are big issues (though of course there are a million more, everyone has to pick his battles). But both of these foundations are big. Huge. Massive. Millions of people involved, and millions donated. Sometimes a baby-steps sort of organization is a refreshing change...

Recently, while perusing a favorite magazine's blog, I discovered #4Liters. A challenge run by Dip Deep Water next week, #4Liters' aim is raise as much awareness for the water crisis as possible. So many people are just simply unaware of this simple and terrifying problem in some of the world's poorest areas. The #4Liters Challenge, small and still new, uses the platform of a personal challenge to inspire compassion in its participants and awareness for their connections.

Women around the world spend over 200 million hours a day collecting water, walking an average of 6 kilometers. 3.4 million people a year die from a water-related disease due to contamination and poor sanitation. Matt Damon (who started Water.org with his brother) spent a day without a toilet to raise awareness last year (Water.org). Including drinking, cleaning, washing, humans require about 50 liters of clean water a day to survive. The average in Haiti is 4; the average in the States is 550 (4Liters.org).

To quote the #4Liters Challenge page, "4Liters is built to transform you, by providing a glimpse into the daily lives of nearly a billion people worldwide. It's a brave experiment in compasssion" (4Liters.org). All funds raised go directly to the DigDeep Water project, which works to get access to clean water for different areas around the world, including Sudan, Cameroon, and even New Mexico. The organization also runs many education and advocacy programs.

I will be living on 4 Liters of water a day from tomorrow through Wednesday, and I'll document it as much as I can on here and through my Twitter account (link is on the right of this page). I am hoping to raise $100US for the Dig Deep Foundation through my efforts. Even small donations will help me reach my goal, so please consider it!

But at the very least, I hope that this challenge will remind us that even the smallest, simplest human needs are sometimes not met. And with a million little baby steps, we can change the world together.

My #4Liters profile can be found here . You can read up about the water crisis, the challenge, the Dig Deep projects, and donate.