On a precarious slope, Etienne digs into the dusty soil with a small hoe, planting beans in hope of the rains. In recent years these rains have become unpredictable. Miles away, his wife is returning from the forest, a bundle of firewood on her head. She was up before dawn carrying water from the spring, her only source of water, nearly an hour’s walk away. The young baby on her back is sick with intestinal parasites from drinking this water she has worked so hard to provide.
The global context may be lost on this family, but they live out its consequences on a daily basis. In the United States, frequent headlines warn of what is happening to the earth and its ecosystems, but because the impact on Western life is minimal, the predictions are largely ignored.
I was among those who ignored the signs until I began working with Plant With Purpose. Then I began to understand. To get beyond the symptoms of poverty we needed to address the health of the eco-system. So, for example, looking on eroded mountains and silt-choked rivers in Haiti, we cannot give a cup of cold water without restoring the watershed. We are all dependent on a healthy world.
