"I Won't Complain"

I always wondered how women could carry those huge buckets of water on their heads without dropping it or how they could walk for miles holding massive bags of rice… It’s because they have to! When the quality of your life depends on “that” one thing, you’ll dust your shoes off, put on your big girl panties, and grab the superwoman cape. We are strong because we have to be, not necessarily because we want to. We never truly actualize our full strength because there’s always something that stumbles along our journey to push us just a little bit further…

It’s been almost a week since we ran out of water and the water from the hose hasn’t come yet to fill up the tanks. Every now and again when this happens, I’d buy a bottle of water to use for my bucket bath when I don’t feel clean after using a baby wipe. I have even given up exercise for the past 12 days in order that I might sweat less. Still, I told myself “I won’t complain.” I remind myself of the 102 families in my neighboring community that never have “agua de la llave (faucet water),” and are forced to make one of two decisions every week: walk a few miles to find water or use the brown contaminated water from a local pond.   

Today was different; I ran out of baby wipes and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my drinking water to bathe. Not to mention, my host mom was not home today to treat me like a princess as she always does when she feels bad and apologizes for uncontrollable happenings, like this water situation. So I sat on my porch, sweating and playing Uno with my host sister. I watched as two elder women walked slowly with that slight forward lean and arched back some of us get after life happens to us. They each carried two empty recycled bottles and a bucket. About 40 minutes later, they returned with the buckets on their heads and one bottle in each hand, all full of water.

Seconds later, I looked down at my dirty hands, then at my 10 year old sister and said “It’s time to put my big girl panties on”. She gave me that scrunched eyebrow and raised lip look we do when we don’t understand someone.  After all, I did say it in English. She smiled as she saw me pick up the two empty oil bottles our mom uses when she goes to find water. As I walked down the hill during the hottest part of the day, I said to myself “I won’t complain, I won’t complain!”… I continued on to fill up the bottles, then I returned home only to realize that these two bottles of water only filled up one of the six buckets. Since I haven’t mastered the head method of transportation, I walked up and down the hills 5 more times carrying water. Every now and again, I’d stop to take to a breather when my arms felt as though they were about to fall off. Women and children sat on their porches saying “Adios, Micha!… Dios te bendiga!” as I passed by. By the third trip, I even had a group of children following me. My muscles ached and my fingers were cramped, but I walked along and smiled…

Today taught me two lessons: 1.) You know the value of every drop of water when you’re the one carrying it. 2.) For almost every situation in life, we have 2 choices- we can either allow our situations to overcome us, or we can get up, wipe the sweat off our foreheads and do something about it.

Is there something in your life worthy of your super(wo)man cape? You may not think your strong enough, but trust me, you have a ball of strength somewhere deep down in your core that you haven’t used yet. Get up and go for it! Yes, there may be stops and hiccups and you may even be hurt along the way, but choose to continue on. A try beats a fail. Whatever is, once you attain it, you’ll value it that much more when you have worked for it. Through it all, remember “I won’t complain”… Until next time my friends J