The drought-dismissing Duke student (noun): 1. avoids hand-sanitizer dispensers forced upon him or her by the administration; 2. a. leaves the tap running while brushing teeth; b. takes 10-minute showers just to get away from homework; 3. changes the water cup after every game.
Many of us have acted as if we are above the drought. We've paid $1.00 in food points for a shot of water at The Loop without displaying much care or concern. But what would we do if we were being watched? What if our hydrophilic behaviors were being judged by Durham families living under Stage IV water restrictions?
Perhaps then we would feel distress for our greater community-we'd resist the urge to sanitize and rinse and only shower before important rush events. But why can't we target this balance between necessity and extravagance even without being watched? Why are "RLHS vs. the drought" signs not enough? Where, truly, is our humility?
Sure, we may be more talented than, far smarter than and generally superior to our counterparts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-no need to be humble there. Yet humility is something we could all strive to display more often-a quality I came closest to learning this past summer while living and volunteering through the DukeEngage program in New Delhi, the perpetually drought-plagued capital of India.
I recognize that calling a city of 22 million inhabitants "waterless" may strike some as an exaggeration. But if your two-bucket "bath" ran dry with shampoo still in your hair, or your toilet didn't flush more than once a day, you'd be more likely to understand.
There I was: stranded, without evacuation insurance, in 100-degree weather, challenged to adapt to the distressed world around me. There were six of us in that tiny apartment: four boys, two girls-one flush. We each learned to shower with less than one liter, brush our teeth with less than a pint and not use the restroom casually.
All the while, we avoided drinking Delhi's tap water-the convicted agent of the infamous "Delhi Belly" (translation: more flushes). Instead, we sipped store-bought bottled water, and we stood out because of it.
I would enter the streets of New Delhi as I was forced to: barely bathed, soaked in sweat, gripping a liter of bottled water. And I noticed everyone staring at me. It couldn't have been my skin color-for once I fit in. It shouldn't have been my clothing-Indian men conform more to "Western" clothing than we do. And I doubted it was my accent. After all, I had finished my T-reqs in Hindi.
I recall a young boy during one of my days volunteering. He shook my hand and hurried off before coming back with a glass of chilled water. I explained in Hindi that I had brought my own. Those around me stood puzzled, confused why I would prefer my warm bottled water over the refrigerated tap water they had offered me.
How could I explain respectfully that Delhi's tap water wasn't "clean" enough for my body to handle? How could I justify spending 12 rupees (U.S. $0.25) on each liter of water when that's nearly one-fourth the average daily earnings of Delhi's street populations? To me, bottled water was a necessity; to them, it was an extravagance.
I recognized that I couldn't truly engage in this community unless I was willing to adapt. With hesitation, I soon began to dilute my bottled water with water drawn from the tap.
I sipped slowly and increased the concentration of tap water even more cautiously, hoping my white blood cells could keep pace. Within a week, I was drinking from the faucet.
A friend back on campus commented that if I wanted to seem culturally sensitive I should have explained that with each liter of bottled water I drank, 10 liters would go to those very street kids in Delhi (see your nearest Volvic bottle). But where does this notion of a "need" to be humble grow out of? With eyes watching, I adapted in Delhi and learned "humility," doing my best to be considerate of those around me.
But now, back home, I sometimes catch myself losing that humility temporarily-taking 10 minute showers and such. Inside the protected walls of Duke, it's easy to lose sight of the distressed world around us. We are surrounded by a city facing water shortages, health crises and daily suffering, but many of us only notice-and only care-when reminded.
Aneesh Kapur is a Trinity junior.
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