This really makes me cringe.
When I agreed to do this interview about the Run For H2O to
be aired on national TV across Canada, I hadn’t quite thought through how it
was actually going to work. Because it was in Chinese. Which I speak like a 5
year old, and only ever voluntarily use when I’m talking to my grandma or ordering
dim sum.
I had zero vocabulary to talk about my work. Whether
Guatemala is pronounced “Nguy-day-ma-lai” or “Ngah-day-ma-lai” in Cantonese, I still can’t get straight.
But I figured, if it means one person in Guatemala does not need to spend the rest of their life enslaved to the task of survival and carry, literally, the heavy and exhausting 4-6 hour daily burden of fetching dirty water from open sources that will inevitably bring sickness and death to their family....
But I figured, if it means one person in Guatemala does not need to spend the rest of their life enslaved to the task of survival and carry, literally, the heavy and exhausting 4-6 hour daily burden of fetching dirty water from open sources that will inevitably bring sickness and death to their family....
... then I can memorize some Chinese. So I did.
- In all its backwards-to-English grammar: Worldwide – five – under – children – most – frequent – death – reason - diarrhea.
- In the complexity of explaining why the local government is unable to resolve the problem of water in their country: Because actually, Guatemala has recently endured 36 years of devastating civil war, which was basically a government-sponsored genocide of the indigenous Mayan people. The government killed 200,000 indigenous people and thousands more were tortured and ‘disappeared’ during the war. Even though there is no longer active armed violence, and the war has been officially over since 1996, the indigenous people are still extremely and systematically marginalized, and any support that the government does provide is fairly nominal, if at all. It is these most vulnerable people that we are helping through the Run For H2O.
- In the simple but vocab-filled explanation of how there IS clean water already in Guatemala, just that the source of mountain springs where it is clean can be far away from the villages, and by the time it flows naturally to open creeks and streams where it can be collected, it is full of contaminants and bacteria... but a water system that caps the spring at its source and use pipes and gravity to bring it down (“tempt” it down, in Chinese) to the village means clean water for life, and all it takes to do this for a whole community is nothing more than about $600 per household, or $100 for person to have clean water for life.
- In its units of measure that counts by ten-thousands, which I could not for the life of me remember, until I scribbled down the sound “bat-man” beside $80,000 = “8 ten-thousands” on my script and then laughed out loud. “How much money have you raised so far through the Run For H2O?” “Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BAT-MANNNNNN!”
It was meant to be all and well... until the TV host went completely off-script once the
camera started rolling, asking me all sorts of interesting questions & leaving
me fighting to keep a cheery smile while internally screaming at the TV host, what the heck!! I TOLD you I could only answer the secretly pre-arranged questions!!!
Once it was over, I never mentioned it again except to my parents
and my grandma, and never intended to -- everyone else who already knows me can (and does!) hear about
Guatemala, my love for the people there, and the invitation to run and to give
through the Run For H2O, thank you very much. No one needs to watch me bumble
through it in my stuttery Chinese for kicks.
But then..... I got this email from a family after
it aired:
Hi... I saw your event
from a TV program yesterday and my kids would like to send their
social benefits cheques to support your event. We are living in Ontario.
We got their $200 cheque in the mail that week. I was so touched.
I don’t know what these kids have to give up. But it is certainly more than me
(a little sleep and a lot more pride). And it made it all worth it. And I am so
glad I did it – it is the least I can do.
So, with that said... here it is. 30 minutes of ‘fame’ .. or
really, just being human, together.
And maybe you can help just 1 person get access to clean water
- and with it, health, hope, and new life.
This 1-Minute Video is much better :)
This 1-Minute Video is much better :)
Consider helping 1 person this year. $100. It’s not nothing,
but it means everything.
Make a gift at: my.hope-international.com/rainbow
