World Water Day

Nearly two years ago I took an eye-opening overnight trip to a gorgeous area of Tanzania with my friend, Kezia. When we got off the bus in Babati, our friend, Darren, the project manager of the water project we were visiting, met us and took us for a quick meal of rice and beans at a small nearby restaurant. As soon as lunch was finished, we were whisked away up into the hill to witness a life drastically different from our own. A life so different, even, from the one we lived at the ADRA Tanzania campus, which boasted running water, sometimes-warm showers, and even wireless Internet.

Up in the hills surrounding Babati we saw newly-built latrine blocks and wells. We also saw people whose lives had just gotten easier because they could now just walk to the nearby well and pump their own water instead of having to go to a stream for their daily supply. We saw children racing to see who could get to the well first, and laughing as they worked together to make the pump work. We watched women and children joyfully lug their overflowing buckets of water back to their thatch-roof houses. And we realized how truly blessed we are in our first-world countries.

The gorgeous green valley surrounding Babati

New school latrine block on the left, old one on the right

Project workers examining the progress on a new well

Trying out the pump

Kezia giving the pump a whirl

Village leaders and project workers discussing the new well

Women coming to get water from the village well

Stopping to check out another well

Village children lined up to get water for their families

The children often team-pump to get their water faster and easier

Gabo, the project driver, helping the children pump water

Gabo demonstrated a mistake with the wall surrounding the well

Village leaders signing in for a meeting about the well in their area

Spacious well for a village and a school

Women carrying full buckets of water home from the village well

I am so grateful that I had the chance to go on that two-day trip and experience a new part of Tanzania, experience what life would be like without indoor plumbing, experience what life would be like without fresh water to drink or a clean place to go to the washroom. I will never forget the beautiful rolling green hills surrounding Babati, but even more than that, I will never forget the experience of seeing just how much fresh, clean drinking water can change lives and make people so happy.

Find out more information about World Water Day and learn how you can help villages like the ones near Babati.
See what ADRA's Beyond the 5 campaign is doing to help people around the world get clean water.

To see more pictures of my trip to Babati, visit my Tanzania mission blog.

Kupikia Tanzania cookbook

A few weeks before Christmas I saw a very interesting post on the Cradle of Love Baby Home Facebook page. Cradle of Love is the orphanage I volunteered at while I was working in Tanzania two years ago. Another former volunteer, Angela, decided to go back to Tanzania and work with Tanzanian ladies to learn traditional Tanzanian recipes. She then put all the recipes into a cookbook, which she is now selling, donating all the proceeds to three organizations in Tanzania that are special to her heart. Cradle of Love is one of the three organizations who benefits from the profits of this cookbook.

As soon as I heard about the "Kupikia Tanzania" cookbook, I immediately went to the Blurb page for the book (Blurb is the company Angela used to make the book) and added it to my Amazon wishlist. Then I went back to my normal life. What a surprise for me when, about a week after my birthday last month, I got a package and found this cookbook inside! My amazing sister, Bryna, had bought it for me! I browsed through the cookbook right away, noting that all of my favourite Tanzanian dishes were included. Mmmm, chapati, chipsi myai, and mandazi! I can't wait to try out the vegetarian recipes and bring a little bit of that beautiful East African country that I love so much into my kitchen!

Thank you so much, Bryn, for your wonderful birthday gift! Come visit me sometime and we can cook and eat some of the dishes together! :)

Thank you also, Angela, for taking the time and energy to learn the recipes and to create this beautiful cookbook! I know Cradle of Love is already benefiting from your generous work and I'm sure the other organizations are as well.

My new cookbook!

I love the Kiswahili tips page! I definitely need to brush up on it.

If you are interested in purchasing the "Kupikia Tanzania" cookbook and assisting three worthy organizations who are helping people in Tanzania, go to the Blurb page for the book: Kupikia Tanzania: An Exploration of Tanzanian Cuisine. You can either buy the PDF version, which will come to you instantly after your purchase, or the softcover book version. For more information about the cookbook and the organizations it's helping, go to the Kupikia Tanzania website.

Spreading Christmas cheer

Christmas is coming and I'm gearing up for all the coming cheer! I've made my Christmas list and my mind is dancing with gift ideas for my family. I just can't wait to get the gifts, wrap them, put them under that beautiful REAL LIVE Christmas tree, and see them unwrapped on Christmas morning.

But at the same time that visions of wonderfulness are filling my brain, I can't forget the others. Those people around the world who won't have snow and colourful Christmas trees and wrapped presents waiting impatiently for December 25. The people who don't even have all they need, let alone anything they want.

So while I get ready for my first Christmas back in North America again, I think of the past two Christmas seasons. The simple ones I shared with just one loved one instead of my whole family. The ones without trees and multitudes of presents, without excess. The ones that were even more abundant than what some people will ever experience. And I take a little bit of time to do something for those people. And you know, it's that little bit of time that makes this season a whole lot sweeter.

"It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts 20:35b (NKJV)

Here are some ways you can join me in helping someone else this Christmas
Give a child in Tanzania a backpack and school supplies for $7 - Funds needed by December 10th
Pack a Operation Christmas Child box and donate the shipping costs - Needed by November 19th
Choose from a multitude of gift options on ADRA International's Gift Catalog
Buy an End it Now gift to help end violence against women and girls
Pick out a Christmas gift for a special person on your list from the International Children's Care shop or buy the ICC kids a much-needed item
Buy a cookbook written and designed by a Cradle of Love Baby Home volunteer to raise money for the orphanage and two other charities in Tanzania
Make gift baskets to give out to needy families in the community

How else are you helping someone in need this holiday season?

World Giving Index

Canada ranked second in the world on the recent World Giving Index 2010. Australia and New Zealand are tied for first while Canada shares second place position with Ireland. Below are some of the results from the 153-country survey:

Click for interactive map

The Top 10 rankings for the most charitable countries in the world, and their score out of 100 on the Giving Index
1. Australia, New Zealand, 57
2. Canada, Ireland, 56
3. Switzerland, USA, 55
4. Netherlands, 54
5. United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, 53
6. Austria, 52
7. Laos, Sierra Leone, 50
8. Malta, 48
9. Iceland, Turkmenistan, 47
10. Guyana, Qatar, 45

And the bottom 5
149. Cambodia, Pakistan, Romania, Rwanda, 16
150. Bangladesh, 15
151. China, Lithuania, Greece, 14
152 Serbia, Ukraine, 13
153. Burundi, Madagascar, 12

I find these things so fascinating! Hope you did, too.
(For more interesting interactive charts and maps relating to world studies, click here.)

If wishes were fishes...

*Title inspired by one of my sister's favourite quotes, "If wishes were fishes..."

When I was young I found out about the Make a Wish Foundation when my parents took us for a treat at the local Dairy Queen. Paper hot air balloons covered the restaurant walls, with names of local kids helped by the Make a Wish Foundation and the wishes they chose printed on the balloon baskets. After asking my dad to explain the foundation, I decided to figure out exactly what I would ask for. You know, just in case I ever got a terrible disease and would qualify for one of those wishes. Thankfully, I made it through my childhood and teen years without anything too terrible, health or otherwise, happening to me. But just in case something did happen, I used to toy back and forth with ideas. My final two, and I could never manage to choose between them, were (1) to play the Phantom of the Opera, and violin solo in the second half, with some famous orchestra, and (2) to go to Cremona to witness authentic violin makers at work and hopefully get to see (and maybe possibly play!?!) some of Stradivari's famous instruments. Can you tell this was back when I had just fallen in love with the Phantom of the Opera, was keen on learning everything I could about Stradivari, and in the midst of my daydreams to be a world renown violin maker? Yeah, thought so.

For several years now those Make a Wish plans have been pushed to the back of my mind. But they all tumbled forward again when I read a news story this morning about several organizations that make wishes come true for elderly people. As I read the story, I was impressed with the idea. I would love to someday be involved in an organization like that, either for elderly people or for sick children. Wouldn't it be a great feeling to know you had helped make someone's greatest wish come true? I think so. Especially if it was someone who would never have had the chance to experience that wish without your help.

Lifesaver Bottle

*Inspired by Ruben's Facebook status update on 08/04/09.

Although I don't understand all the inner workings of this invention, I find the concept fascinating. Even so, I'm not completely sure I would actually want to drink the water, no matter how clean it truly is. Of course, I am able to hold a glass under the kitchen tap and, within seconds, drink as much delicious and healthy BC well water as I want. The fact is, there are millions of people around the world who don't have the same privileged of clean drinking water as me. And that's why this idea intrigues me.

More on the Lifesaver bottle.