Today is the day to celebrate water, not only the health benefits it gives us through cold showers, but also as the precious wellspring of life itself. Here is a true story about water in the world, written by Alexa Fleckenstein, M.D., author of Health 2 0.
Turkey, 1970. A young American couple and a Turk at a small wellspring – a trifling rill of water in a vast land of rolling hills covered in ochre gravel and brown dried brush.
The Americans, with their feet in a muddy puddle that sends that paltry rivulet trickling down the hill, are shampooing their hair. They are laughing, trying to engage the Turk with their friendliness. “Su! Su!” says the Turk. He is tiny compared to the strapping young couple, and I suspect he is not as old as he looks – aged before his time as people are who live in arid regions. The Americans listen good-naturedly and seem to enjoy his funny gesturing. They are now rinsing their hair in the runnel that percolates meagerly from the rocks above. They laugh about the funny situation: Here they are standing in a foreign country, not speaking the language, with soap in their hair, trying to comprehend the excited babbles of a little man. “Su! Su!” he says again. What they want to know from him is: Does he have a decent faucet at home to get rid of the shampoo?
“Su! Su!” the Turk urges again, pointing down into the valley and back to their feet, and down again. I happen upon the scene with my traveling companions and I cannot understand his words either. I do understand, however, the agony in his eyes and his gestures: The soapy run-off flowing downhill is no broader than my finger– and it is the only source of water for the man’s village!
Never have I forgotten this picture: those friendly Americans, oblivious to the impact of their doings on the rest of the world. By some quirk of fate, I have become an American myself and have found happiness and opportunity and heart-warming friendship in this country.
The Turk’s agony and my German upbringing conspired: Water has become an important focus of my life – and of my work as a physician. In my youth, everybody took a short cold rinse after each warm shower or warm bath – to “close the pores.” I grew up washing my face with cold water only – and never with soap. Cold water promoted health and beauty, that’s what I learned early on. But then I came here, and the suggestion to use cold water only produced a mocking shiver from my patients: Who would use cold water if they could have it warm?!
A lifetime later, we all have learned that popping pills is not the answer to many of our “civilized” diseases, and even something as outlandish as cold water seems reasonable – especially if backed up by modern research: Cold water is an important stimulus for our over-coddled immune system. Back in the times when we dwelled in caves and roamed the savannah, cold helped us move around and fight diseases, as unlikely as it might sound at first.
There is no life without water, and the benefits of water on health are myriad. Unfortunately, we will have water only if we learn to view it not as the cheap stuff flowing from the tap on demand, but as the precious, sacred wellspring of our lives.
Americans are living off the rest of the world, blithely unaware – and water is only one of the precious resources that we squander thoughtlessly. From 1985 to 1995, the UN had declared a Decade of Water. That effort went by, unheard, unheeded here – just like the Turk’s cry for “Su! Su!” – “Water! Water!” at that encounter around the dribbling well. Since 2005, another Decade of Water is underway, again mostly ignored here.
There’s very little ill will in this country but plentiful lack of information and education. Americans don’t understand why they are so much hated in the world. The world sees them thus: Good-natured and friendly Americans – outsized kids – are plundering Earth’s resources.
No bread? Let them eat cake! No water? Let them turn on their faucets!
