And we are back to water. It seems only fitting, since the globe is
mostly covered by it.
As I was looking over information on Central America, one of my
hard-copy magazines - Popular Science - had an entire issue on water. Including
an article on the sudden and sustained lack
of water in Colombia in the northern part of South America.
The northern part of South America is also definitely in the tropics,
because that area straddles the Equator, and the tropics is generally 30° north
to 30° south of the equator. That’s latitude degrees, not temperature degrees.
Colombia is also quite mountainous, but that doesn’t mean their water
supply is assured. The article spoke of one city sitting in the heights below a
ski resort. Until recently, that resort could exist because of a glacier that
sat atop the mountain. That glacier also was the source of the water used by
the city.
Guess what. That glacier is gone now. Not just receding, like so many
glaciers are, it is GONE.
No more skiing on that mountain, no more water for that city. Now the
water officials load up what water is available into tank trucks and deliver it
around the area. When the truck pulls up and stops, everybody runs for whatever
they have that will hold water; pots, barrels, bottles and jars. They may go
home and empty those items into their sinks or bathtub and run back to see if
the truck is still there. If it is, they fill their pots, barrels and jars
again.
They don’t know how long it will be before the truck arrives to deliver
more water, so they have to be stingy with every drop. It is all they have for
cooking and possibly a sponge bath. In the meantime, they listen for notices
from the government as to when the water in their taps may be turned on for a
limited time.
At one point, the author was with a woman who had stayed home from work
that afternoon. The water was supposed to be turned on in the pipes for 3
hours, and she wanted to get some laundry done. But the water never came from
her pipes that afternoon. No laundry got done.
Did all the women in the city stay home that afternoon, hoping to get
some laundry done?
The article ended with a brief mention of another Colombian city on
another mountain, also depending on the mountain-top glacier for its water
supply. That glacier is visibly shrunken, smaller than anybody has ever seen it
before.
Perhaps they’ll figure out another source for water. The article didn’t
mention any attempts to look, to figure something out. Everybody - even the
water officials - just kept saying, “The rains will come.”
What are we, ostriches? Refusing to acknowledge a problem will not make
it magically go away!
This is a depressing subject, and not the type I would usually spend
time on trying to spin into an entertaining novel. I suffer from chronic
depression and just found an anti-depressant that actually works for me. I don’t
know if I’m done researching this subject or not... my constant companion -
depression - keeps telling me to stick my head in the sand and think of pretty
things. But the story for the novel is beginning to take shape in my head. I
think I’ll start thinking out scenes and where they would go, and speak of
other things in this blog for a while. If I need to, I can still do more
research.
So, next time, the subject will be... Oh, who knows? Whatever I find
interesting between now and then.
