Why Raja didn’t go to school

When the Americans came to town, the first thing they noticed was the lack of kids being in school, especially girls. They figured kids needed an education in order to get ahead in their future. This was in Pakistan, but also in Niger and Zambia Americans saw the same thing. They tried to raise support in America so schools could be built in Pakistan, Niger, Zambia and many other places, especially on the African continent. They built the schools but many girls would not come to school. Or they would come to overcrowded classes and not really learn anything, so their parents took them out. They were far more productive helping on the farm. 


In Niger the boys worked in the fields and the girls had to make hours-long trips to get water. Niger is over 80% Sahara desert.  These basic jobs kept kids out of school. Water was desperately needed at home. On their way to the pump, the girls passed by the big houses with running water. So, water was accessible, but only to the priviledged. The girls were struck by the opulence for the rich and poverty of the rest, like them. These economic gaps triggered frustration and anger among the poverty stricken. We think about economic aid or education required to have the basics, but more basic is the provision of water. 

The lack of water, or inequality of water distribution triggers tribal or religious conflicts. Rival factions will use water as a weapon. Maybe they blow up a water line, for instance. Then, Raja and her friends have to travel farther to get water for their families.

It is under those circumstances that Americans start to see that each community needs individually designed systems. Having to go after that water, kept the boys and girls away from school. This in turn kept them from getting ahead economically. Economic improvements don’t come like magic. 

One time, Ben was in England, helping out with soccer camps for children. He stayed with a doctor from Nigeria. Nigeria was poor. The doctor explained that it was not for a lack of water. There was plenty of that, but what happened to the crops storage facilities? What about the roads those crops had to be transported over? There was no upkeep because of corrupt governments.

Raja cannot go to school now, because she has to carry water. She had to carry water because waterlines were blown up. Waterlines were blown up because people were angry about the inequality of water distribution. The inequality of water distribution was in part, the result of government corruption: Officials took care of themselves. They had houses with running water. Those were among the houses Raja and her friends passed on the way to, you guessed it: get water. 

California Water Management


Folsom Lake

The Sacramento area got almost 4” of rain in the foothills on this February day in 2016! That happens more often, but this time it was so welcome because California has been in a drought for 5 years. The news media have been telling us that we need to conserve water. Governor Brown even demanded a 25% reduction every month based on the 2013 water use, so the media duty fully reported the actual reductions each month. For the month of February (2016) it was 24.6 %, just below the required 25%.

“But who cared, we were getting some rain and snow now so we can cheat a little, right?” Ben thought.

 As Ben was watching the news with his friend Paul, it showed the huge Folsom Dam with water spilling over two of the spillways and the newscaster saying two more spillways would be opened later that day.

 “How can they do that?” Paul fumed.  “Here we are in the drought, and they are wasting all that water. What are they thinking?”

 The newscaster was prepared for that question and resumed:“ We have people calling in asking why they are releasing so much water in this drought season; we’re only at 83% of average precipitation!”  He went on: “Folsom Lake is filling up fast and if we don’t release water now there will be no room left for the snow melt come this spring.”  It takes 10x more time to release the same amount of water, than it takes to fill Folsom Lake with a couple of 3-4” rainfalls. 

“How could Lake Folsom fill up so fast with an average of 83% precipitation to-date, when only a few months ago the lake was literally just about empty?” Ben thought. “If the lake fills up this fast, and we got very little snow and rain in February, we are way short of storage capacity!” Ben couldn’t believe he said that, because a week ago he was still thinking: Just because the lakes are filling up does not mean we are out of the woods yet, concerning the drought.

 “Didn’t we read just a few weeks ago that even if we got 100% of the required precipitation, California would still be short because there are aquafers to be replenished yet?” Paul lamented.  “How did we do it before this drought season? They must have been releasing at least as much water, then.”

 “Then nobody worried about not having enough water after the winter,” Ben replied.

 Ben changed his mind and believes we actually are behind in building dams.  Before, he thought that more dams wouldn’t make any difference; that all it would do is increase our consumption and there never would be enough water in California anyway. Now he realizes that those reservoirs fill up so fast that a few more will be very helpful. 

Ben’s son recently told him that the release program of water is based on outdated information. That information was valid years ago when there was plenty of rainfall and more water had to be released to make room for snow run-off. Now that we use more water, the program has to be updated, but that will become a story for another time.

It’s all just a drop in the Bucket. 

The Scroll

Far into adulthood I automatically assumed that my English was just average, like no more than 8th grade level. I came to that conclusion because I went to Jr. High school in Caracas, Venezuela. It was an American school where English was the common language. After eighth’s grade my family returned back to Holland where I attended Dutch schools. English was one class I was good in. I always knew the answers without the grammatical instruction given by the teacher. I was just fluent, so got straight A’s. I did not learn anything new, and I didn’t pay much attention to the grammar lessons. 


As an adult, many of my writings / reports were criticized, including grammatical errors. I automatically assumed that I only had 8th grade level English, so probably never would be any good in writing. I did not distinguish between asking someone for reviewing my writing for improvements, and pure grammar. I blamed my struggle in college, on not having been brought up in the Dutch secondary school system, which is far more rigorous than the American school system. I blamed / contributed getting criticized for my writing in my career, to the fact that I did not pay attention to English grammar beyond eight’s grade.

Fast forward to 2012-13 when we took a writing class where I got serious in writing and became aware that I could write. Even to the point that I took our teacher serious when she titled her last class: “finish your book…!” It was a class where we were taught how to write our life story.

The scroll started to unroll…

I ended up writing and having my life story printed in book form. That felt gooood, holding that book in my hands! The purpose of the book was for my grand children to learn more about their past. It turned out to be more than that. I passed a copy around in my bike club and soon a list developed so those interested could read it. I got a lot of positive comments.

Next I started blogging. I learned a bit from my daughter and son-in-law about that. Then I took a course from Michael Hyatt (Get Published), and next from Jerry Jenkins (Jerry's Guild), as I described in my previous blog. 

The scroll unrolled some more...

Simultaneously, I am following Rick Warren’s sermons about dreams and how those can turn into goals. That all sounds very good and well, but it is still so mechanical. What is it all based on? I say it is based on a world vision that everybody has, consciously or unconsciously. What is yours?

My world vision is that God exists, and that the Bible is His Word. You may have a different world vision, but you have to start somewhere.
We all have dreams. Where do those come from? That depends on your world view.
What have you always wanted to do? What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
 
When we put a date on our dream it becomes a goal. Goals require faith!
I will … by …December 31, 2016.  How do you know that?

How big should my goal be? That depends on the next question: How much time do you have? Do you want to accomplish your goal in one year? You can only do so much in a year. If you have ten, fifteen years, then you can dream BIG, and set bigger goals.
We over-estimate what we can do in a year and under-estimate what we can do in 10, 15 years. That became clear to me when I sat down with my financial planner recently, as to what my financial future will look like, given certain parameters. One of those parameters was age. He assumes I will reach 90 and calculated my financial needs accordingly. Ninety??? All of a sudden it hit me: that is 17 years away yet, but not impossible since both my parents reached 90! 

The scroll is unrolling some more, again… 

Now I want to write this novel. Just because my dream seems impossible, is not a reason to give up. 
 
Behold the turtle: he only is willing to take risks when he sticks his neck out.    Rick Warren
                                                                                        

A Leap of Faith

A dream? Yes, but to make it a goal, a reality, it needs a deadline. That deadline is now set: December 31, 2017. But there is more to this…! 

This is how my last blog ended. When we set goals, and put a deadline on it - making the dream a goal by definition - isn’t that a leap of faith? Why December 31, 2017? Why not December 31, 2016? This goal did not just come falling out of the sky.

1. Start Writing

In 2012-13 Marise and I followed a writing class about writing your life story, held at the Senior Center on the South-East end of Woodland, California. We got a writing assignment each Thursday afternoon, then sign up to read it in class the next week and receive a critique from the teacher and fellow students. We also had to listen to a reading by the teacher of a good book - Sonia Sotomayor’s life story - wherein we were to listen for well written passages. We attended a second semester, sub-titled: "Finish your book!" It was not until  2015 for me to complete and have printed: Five Cultures Later, a life story. It was a dream-come-true, to feel a copy of that book in my hands!  


 
2. Get Training

I started to follow Michael Hyatt in July 2014, and signed up for: Platform University on September 11, 2014. There I learned what WordPress stood for, the definition of a blog, the use of several apps, such as Evernote, DayOne for journaling, getting a logo from 99Designs, and his course: Get Published. In the Get Published course i had to write out a book proposal , which I did, even though I still have to write the book! 


3. My Weekly Planning Habits since 2000

So I wrote a book proposal for editors, but still have to write the book. This is Habit 2: With the end in mind, from the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , by Stephen Covey. I do not have a good ending yet for my book, but for the most part my book proposal is written:


4. How Do You Write a Novel? 

Since January 23, 2016, I follow The Jerry Jenkins Writer’s Guild (author of the Left Behind series); a course on writing. Here I am learning what a novel entails and how to go about it. Following him, makes me realize that I have a long ways to go. I am just at the beginning. That is why I set the deadline a year later. Developing characters is my next task. As I write, the story is developing, and I expect to come across the ending somewhere along the line. 


 Jerry Jenkins explains that there are basically two kinds of novel writers: Those who have an outline, meticulously defining every scene or at least the chapters, and those who go and develop a story on the run. I belong to the latter. So far I have developed two characters and a third one is emerging. I do not even know the ending yet. You, the reader can be part of this development. Here, I will write episodes which will become a chapter of the book. Go to fivecultureslater.org (just google it…!) and read some of the previous blogs to get an idea of where this novel is headed.

So, there you have it. I have read many how-to websites, books, and newspaper articles. The how-to’s can be sterile, but as I look back over the above stages, those how-to steps come alive. Whether it is writing a book or any other dream you want to see come true: 
1. Realize that you probably are already on the way. 
2. Identify those steps to establish a starting point. Where are you now? 
3. Then set a deadline. 
Scary, and what happens if you don’t get your dream accomplished by your deadline? Adjust it, and keep at it! 

a Dream + a Deadline = a Goal

What is your dream? What are your dreams? One of my dreams is to write a book about water.

“Water," you say?
“Yes, Water!"

Having lived in five cultures, five years or more in each, I have seen how water is used, misused, how a culture thinks about water, affected by whether there is too much water or not enough, and how old that culture is. Not only that, but how does a culture deal with its water politically? Geographically? Culturally? Financially? So often we read articles in the newspaper about water issues, but they are very narrow minded and short-term oriented. A politician has a great idea, but it will turn out to be very limited, exclude consequences, and the politician will be long out of office before the short-term benefits have run out!

California has had five years of drought. Its reservoirs were almost empty around Oct-Nov. 2015. Yet the law required those reservoirs to continue to release water to sustain the natural habitat, protect almost distinct species, and prevent the concentration of chemicals in the water. In December, January and March enough water fell in the form of rain and snow, especially in Northern California, that by the end of March 2016 the reservoirs were full, or at least up to average as had not been seen for the last five years! “Full", to the extend, that enough space is required to remain for the coming snow run-off from the Sierra Nevada mountains. For the first time in years, complaints surfaced as to why all of a sudden so much water is released from Shasta Lake, the Yolo Bypass had to be opened up again after four years of seeing nothing, and the ground water levels are still way down, depleted over the past five years, causing the Central Valley to sink several inches per year?

In the past, multiple spillways would release water, to allow for snow run-off and potential further precipitation space, to raise the level. Nobody questioned it. It can take ten times as long for the same amount of water to be released, as it takes to fill up a reservoir with only a few rains of 2-4” at a time. Now, that we’ve had five years of drought, people notice it, report it in the news, when extra spillways are opened to release more water.

What about the flood of 1953 in Holland? Many people died, a lot of destroyed property, big cities like Rotterdam were threatened. It took about 50 years before those damages were repaired and the country had a reasonable level of security again. Fisheries in the province of Zeeland, between the islands, got wiped out. People in that industry had to be re-schooled into other jobs. Areas had to be created for excess water during the winter when the Rhine and Meuse rivers bring down tremendous amounts of water that cannot be channeled within the river dikes. The oceans are rising. The North Sea has been steadily rising over the past 40 years, which means dikes need to be raised.

What about Katrina? Everyone in the USA understands that word: “Katrina”. Every hurricane each year gets a name starting with the first letter of the alphabet. Katrina was the 11th hurricane in 2005, that just about swept New Orleans off the face of the earth! People were not prepared. They get so many hurricanes on the East and South coast of the USA, that Katrina was just another one, maybe a bit stronger, but “we can handle it,” was the attitude. 

What about the drinking water shortages in Africa, today? Rotary International has as one of its goals through the Foundation, to support water projects. We cannot simply send a couple of pumps to Africa, as we use here! Who will maintain them? Where will the spare parts be stored? Where will the power come from to run those pumps?

Along Hwy.1 which winds its way along the Pacific Ocean, you now find warning signs about the level of Big Sur State Park:
  Tsunami danger. 
Those signs were not there before the Tsunami hit the Japanese atomic plant along the coast, or the tsunami that hit the island of Sumatra in Indonesia! Have Tsunamis all of a sudden become a threat along the California coast, from the time when the California Missions were built - between, 1769 and 1823, along what is now Hwy 1  - and now?

We have to look at the big picture, at all aspects of water. That is what I dream to write about. It will be in the form of a novel. A novel needs characters, and a story line. It needs a title. The title that's emerging is:
  A Drop in the Bucket. That is the name of this blog. The blog is to help flesh out the story. You can follow this blog on:  
                    fivecultureslater.org    ( ... google it! )
A dream? Yes, but to make it a goal, a reality, it needs a deadline.   That deadline is now set: December 31, 2017. 
But there is more to this...