The next morning my dad and I got up, ate breakfast with our five friends and piled into the van with our Healing Waters translator/guide named Alfredo at the wheel. He told us we were going to a very poor neighborhood called La Brigada, where the system was installed.

The system was in a relatively small room on the property of a community church. Yet for only four quinzales for every five gallon jug, or about 40 cents, it provided enough clean water for the entire area. Because commercial water (the only other clean water option, because water out of the faucet is contaminated) is 18 quinzales, the local people can only afford one five-gallon jug every two weeks. (For a comparison, it takes five gallons just to flush a toilet in the United States.)

The living conditions in La Brigada shocked me, and I got to see first-hand how the water system I helped fund improved the lives of many extremely poor families.

Around lunch time that day, we headed to a two-room house with too many kids to count. The woman who lived there was one of the people benefiting from Healing Waters’ water. She was charming and funny, even though conversation was through an interpreter, and she provided soup, chicken, and amazing tortillas for the 15 people sitting at the rectangular fold-out table on some dirt outside her house.

It was one of the greatest meals I have ever eaten. I realized there was nothing to be afraid of regardless of how poor she was, or how dirty her house seemed. She was completely honored to have us in her home, but we were the ones who ended up grateful.

The people we encountered in Guatemala showed us how to live with hope; the kindness and generosity they showed us was incredible.

The rest of the day was spent on foot, or in the back of a bumpy blue truck. We seven Californians, with about 10 interpreters and buckets and buckets full of water bottles, went all over the La Brigada neighborhood to spread the news about the inexpensive, clean water that would be available to their community that coming Saturday.

We handed the water bottles out to anyone we saw, and the people looked so happy; but more importantly they would soon get purified water for about a third of the price they had been paying. They were grateful and smiling and saying things in Spanish that meant nothing to me, but what I took from it was that I had made a difference.

Grateful for Clean Water

Now, back at home, my perspective on the world, and my outlook on life has completely changed. I am extremely conscious when I flush a toilet, and I am so much more grateful for showers with clean water than I ever was before.

My family has already started saving money to install another system, and I am so excited when I think about all the other people I can help just by giving them the opportunity to have clean water.

Installing a water system seemed like a daunting task to me originally, but once the money was raised I realized how surprisingly simple it all was; instead of buying clothes or eating out all the time, I could save my money in order to help the rest of the world get clean water. There is so much I have taken for granted in my life, but now I want to keep making a difference, one glass of water at a time.