Water.org

One of my earliest memories is my mom walking through our village to get water from the well at my grandparent's house. We used this water to drink, do our washing and bathe. We were lucky, even though my mom had to go out to get the water, unlike almost 800 MILLION people, we had access to clean, safe water.

The problem is enormous but we can make a difference. One in eight people don't have safe water meaning each morning they scavenge to survive. Lack of safe water and sanitation impacts a family's health, keeps children from getting an education, and traps millions in a cycle of poverty.

In just over two weeks, I will be turning 30. In memory of where I came from and with the hope of living to see a world where safe water is accessible to everyone, I am asking that instead of going out to lunch or dinner, you contribute that money to water.org. Lets work together to create the type of world we want to live in!

http://give.water.org/f/sumeerayounis/

Internet/Cable-Free Update

Another completely unrelated picture.

So, as promised, here are my final thoughts on our internet/cable-free life and what I have learned from it.

We went internet-free for about six weeks and I held out for about two more weeks after Feraz got internet in the house. One day, I needed to get something done at home and decided to see if I could guess the password. Three tries later, I had "hacked" into our internet and since then its been a bit of a downward spiral.

These are the books I read while we didn't have internet:

What the Dog Saw and Other Stories
The 19th Wife
Detroit: An American Autopsy
The Toss of a Lemon
This is a Book by Dmetri Martin
London Fields
The Invention of Everything Else
The Snows of Kiliminjaro and Other Stories
Casual Vacancy
Running With Scissors
Spot of Bother

This is what I have read since we got the internet again:

On the Road
The Reluctant Fundamentalist

My house is messier, the meals I make are more rushed, I'm less likely to work out, etc. etc. Feraz and I have actually had meals where we are both on our computers. We talk less, spend less time in our family room together and more time watching our own shows or browsing the internet.

So, why am I back on the internet? That devil for who we sacrifice so much - "convenience."

On the bright side, we still don't have cable.

The Outsiders

Do you have a book that has inexplicably stayed with you after you read it? The Outsiders is one of those books for me. Every time I think of Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay, I go through all the emotions of having read the book for the first time when I was just a kid.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down today.
Nothing gold can stay.
There is something about the theme, this intense desire to be something better, to honor something good in ourselves that becomes lost, that always speaks to me in different phases of my life. Is there a way to hold on to the goodness of youth? When I look at my niece, I think of her innocence and I curse the moments when she will begin to understand the cruelty of the world around her. How will that change her? Is there a way to learn about the world and hold onto that gold? I hope so.

"Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold."