Water Woes

We had a boil-water advisory in Montreal and its surrounding boroughs Wednesday morning until Thursday night affecting one point three million people.  That is 1.3 million people who cannot drink their tap water, use it to prepare food or brush their teeth.  That is also 1.3 million people who started their day without coffee.  Imagine! Gasp!  Talk about a first world problem.

We are so spoiled here.  We’re used to being able to turn on a tap and having good, clean water come pouring out.  We fill a pot with water to boil our pasta or potatoes without even thinking about it.  We have showers every day (some twice a day), letting the water pour over us and down the drain while we lather, rinse, exfoliate, shave, etc.  We let water go down the drain as we stand there scrubbing each tooth.  We turn on the hose and use gallons of water to make our yards pretty and clean the dust off our driveways.

All of a sudden, when we are told that we can’t ingest our water without boiling it, have to fend for ourselves and find water elsewhere, everyone freaks out and runs to the nearest store to load up on bottled water.  Every store downtown is totally sold out right now.  People fet out of sorts.  They’ve been put out.  Again, first world problems.

There are people in this world who walk for miles to get a bucket of clean water.  There are people who think that having a shower once a week is extravagant.  There are people who live in places where water is scarce that they wouldn’t dream of wasting one drop of water on flowers and grass to make their front yard visually pleasing.  There are those living in places where the water is so full of bacteria that you or I would be very sick if we drank it with our lack of immunity.

We complain about having to go to the store for a few bottles of water.   Hmmm…..

 

Kat