We’re running a series of blog posts highlighting WaterAfrica friends and the reasons they participate in our annual Walk4Water.
If you’ve been to WaterAfrica events you may have looked at or even purchased beautiful cards made by Sheri & Bob Kilpatrick. This is their story:
I (Sheri) first traveled to Zambia in 2004. Being a nurse I was keenly interested in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and yearned for these people to be free of the pain, loss of family and stigma. Finally understanding how HIV is transmitted in this region sort of turns on a light bulb making the whole picture of this tragedy come into clear focus. I visited the Mother Theresa hospice and saw the faces – the haunting eyes and the skin barely covering bones on men and women perhaps just hours from death. Within a short distance were other families waiting to bring their loved ones to refill those beds. Two rooms over were the babies and children. It was heart wrenching. These are faces I can’t forget.
In 2008 Bob and I both returned. No longer were the hospice beds full of people near death, instead the people were in the solarium waiting to sing songs for us. The children sang and brought us flowers. This is what the anti-retroviral vaccines accomplished in 4 short years. I was ecstatic. But…I know how many dear ones still fear the next blood test and families are not yet whole.
A significant component to improving health is fresh clean water. Our family decided that funding a well was something tangible we could do to help stop some of the “hurting”. For us this was a step in faith, hoping clean water would not only be a small demonstration of our love for these people now, but would also be sustainable for years to come.
On the 2008 visit Bob walked with the women to dip their water from dirty mud holes. “Are you going to boil it,” he asked? No. They didn’t have the time nor the energy. Yet on the same trip we also saw new boreholes and we knew that many people were now able to draw clean water for their better overall health. While there we were able to see the drilling of “our well” hit water. That was a thrill that we’ll never forget.
We sell cards because the photos we took represent real people. Many are just faces. Beautiful faces. These are the people on the bags and cards. They won’t ever let us forget them. Most are happy despite their situation. Some pictures are of the villagers walking with buckets, some are of boreholes, and our favorite are the children pumping fresh water from their own wells. We can envision villagers splashing in clean fresh water from “our” well and pray that soon this will be representative of the daily life in all villages.
Some photos are from our safari visit. These represent what many people think of when they think of Africa. They remind us of the beauty of nature and that there are still places where these animals roam free. Add those to the “people” of Africa and it gives us a more complete picture of the whole of this country. Simply, these photos won’t ever let us forget the people of Zambia and we want to share our experience. Perhaps some may be inspired to visit there, some nudged to donate, or some to just ask questions. We love to tell the story!
****Bob and Sheri will be at Walk4Water5 with cards and bags for sale. 100% of your purchase price is given to World Vision’s Water, Sanitation & Hygiene projects in Zambia (ZWASH).
Why do You walk? We’d love to hear your stories. Please share them in the comments or email jsearls@waterafrica.org if you’d be willing to have us feature your story in future posts.
