Aqua vitae

Jal. Neer. Paani. Aqua. Agua. Eau. Va-duh. Biyo. Mvura. Rano. Amanzi. Zou. Gui. Mmiri. Nam. Thuk. Wai. Mizu. Mul. Shouei. Air.

Air.

It is common knowledge that water is as essential to humans, and most other species on the planet, as air. Every language on the planet has a word for water, most have two or three in common use. Water creates, maintains and sustains our life force.

I watched a hindi movie yesterday called Road, Movie. It is directed by Dev Benegal, and tells the story of a young man who embarks on a life-changing journey (of course) in an old, dilapidated moving cinema. The film is well made, and thought-provoking. It raises important questions about the scarcity of water in rural regions of India, especially in the North. More importantly and perhaps unintentionally, the film also portrays that the task of finding water for families falls to women and that women of certain tribes will often walk for several days, or weeks in search of water across the dry, arid plains of Rajasthan in search of water. It made me think.

There is a rising movement among non-profit organizations that focuses on women's development, and sets forth the mandate that one of the solutions to climate change and poverty lies in fulfilling the rights of women in many developing nations. At a time when people in the Global North enjoy constant sources of running water 24 hours a day, it is almost incomprehensible that there are people elsewhere who have to walk hundreds of miles in search of this precious resource that is also a basic human right.

What is this connection between women and climate change? The idea is that most women in developing countries still have a close relationship with the earth. Human dependence on our planet's resources is never more clearly portrayed than in the reality of women's work. Especially, that of women in rural areas. In Rajasthan, as shown in the film Road, Movie, women often walk for hundreds of kilometres in search of water during seasons of drought. Half a world away, in the Kenyan Maasai Mara, young girls hold the job of walking miles to the river to lug gallons of water back home.

In rural areas, women are also responsible for growing food and tending herbs and vegetable gardens to feed their families. This close relationship with the earth, and the riches the earth offers, is what connects women so deeply to the environmental cause. The idea that both women and mother earth are 'producers' deepens the association.

Now, I don't believe that all women inherently have this connection.... an urban woman experiences life and connection to the planet very differently from a rural woman. The scent of the urban woman is perhaps as twangy and metallic, as the scent of the rural woman is like the smell of wet earth after the first rainfall.

But isn't that the beauty of being a woman?

Naari. Stri. Aurat. Mujer. Femme. Nü. Frau. Donna. Vrouw. Woman.