from the field | Southern Malawi, February 6th, 2008

We're walking through a corn field in Chileka in southern a district just outside of Blantyre, Malawi. It's 5 am and the sun is mildly peeking through the mountains. The five of us quietly follow two young girls as they walk to collect water, rocks crunching underneath our feet. Carolina and Tabia are 12 and 14, and they're showing us their water supply.

It hasn't rained in a few days, so the water is deceptively clear. When the rains do come, they'll wash mud and dirt down the mountain, and flood the water hole with bacteria, animal waste and disease. The rainy season brings with it frequent outbreaks of cholera and diarrhea, especially among the children here. Yet the girls calmy fill up their pails with water and we begin the climb back up, each of us thinking the same thing - we can't imagine drinking that water, let alone carrying 40 pounds of it through steep mountains.

Back at Carolina and Tabia's house, the girls get ready for school. Their mother says goodbye to us and piles freshly harvested stalks of corn into our hands. This is all she has, and she offers it to us in thanksgiving. Although we haven't done anything yet, she smiles, hopeful that we'll return with a solution. We promise to try.

We continue with the girls to school. The Chitundu Primary School has 205 students, who all rely on a distant well that they share with the nearby village. We follow them again as they make their second long walk of the day to fetch water, blue and yellow pails in hand. Here they're foreced to compete with the older women of the village, and must wait their turn at the pump. The well is down a hill and through another field, and they miss half an hour of class today. Chitundu Primary School needs its own well but with the overwhelming amount of need in Chileka and a reachable well in the area, it is on the bottom of the list. So they wait.

Over the last 6 days, we've seen an overwhelming need here.

We've walked with women to ponds and rivers. We've hiked for an hour in the Neno district to a village that got dirty water from a crude hole in the dirt. We've met two women in Chileka who walk seven times daily up and down a steep mountain carrying water, one pail at a time. We followed Carolina and Tabia on their daily walks. watch video here >

Through our local partner Water For People, charity: water has funded 10 well rehabilitations in Malawi, and 6 new wells that are being completed. See the photos and stories from all 16 wells here >

There's more work to be done here. This Valentine's Day, help us provide communities like Carolina and Tabia's with clean, safe, drinking water. Help us build wells in schools like Chitundu Primary.

Please join us.

100% of each e-card or bottle you buy this Valentine's day will go directly to freshwater projects in Malawi.

Send a bottle of charity: water to a friend of loved one, or send an e-card. For only $20, you can provide a person with clean, safe drinking water for 20 years.