Water Bottles and the Central African Republic

When will I learn? I promised a post on water bottles and Africa 6 days ago.
I know you have been on the edge of your seat waiting.

Alas, I have a preschooler in my home. You never ever promise anything to be completed by the end of the week, much less the next day with a preschooler in the home AND your older child home on track out. One got sick. The other is bored. The combination is not conducive to hanging out on your blog. So, sorry about breaking that promise, but here was what I was thinking about. Water, bottled water to be specific and the Central African Republic. What do they have to do with one another? Read on...


My friend sent me this email the other day about the consumption of bottled water in our country. You can read that entire article here if you so desire.


Tap vs. Bottled Water is the title and it encourages a very good discussion regarding the use of bottled water versus drinking water straight from your tap. Bottled water can be good for us, yes. Convenient, definitely. Good for our environment, not so much. 60 million water bottles hit our landfills daily and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. And the resources used to create the bottles, well, just read the article.


So, just to clarify my opinion because I know you have been dyyying to know. I love bottled water. I love this Smart water, so much! Really, it tastes better and makes me feel more energetic. No kidding. Plus, I think it makes me look really cool at the gym.


I used to have this Le Bleu water delivered to my home every week and love it. It also tastes so much better and I found myself drinking a lot more water when I had it in my home. But, I stopped having it delivered because I budgeted the money somewhere else. Like food and clothing for my new kid. I do still buy some to have on hand for convenience sake.

Both of these waters are filtered, distilled - not Spring. For some reason, I do not like the taste of Spring water. It is like it has something in it.

I recently purchased one of these nifty little Nalgene bottles, a water filter and now fill it it up as much as possible with tap water. My kids have one too. They also look pretty cool at the gym. Not my kids - the bottles. More people are using them if you are really worried about what others think. They come in all kinds of cool colors and styles. Even PINK! Let's not even get started on the discussion that could ensue about the plastics and chemicals used to make them. It makes my head hurt.

Are you ready for a little paradigm shift here?

What do you think these folks in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) think about bottled water? What do you think they think about having water at all?

This is according to ICDI, an organization helping the people of C. A.R.:

"In the Central African Republic only 10% to 15% of the population has pure drinking water available to them (according to Government Forestry and Water Department). Unsafe drinking water is one of the world’s number one killers, taking more than 25,000 people per day (LWI). According to the World Health Organization, 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water and over 2.2 billion people are without basic sanitation (LWI)."

My church has a team in the Central African Republic right now. They are on a mission trip to help drill wells there so these people can have what we take for granted every single day... clean water. Their lives will improve dramatically just by having clean water. Read more about it here and follow my pastor, worship leader, an elder and some other men from our church as they journal their experiences. There are already some powerful pictures of a well being drilled, water coming from that well and the reactions of the people.

We are getting a live feed at church today. I can't wait!