Today is World Water Day, and this year’s theme is Water and Gender, something deeply personal to me.
I visited Baglung as part of my academics, where my ordinary morning walk turned into something that I still carry with me. I came across a suspension bridge, long and high, and I clearly remember waiting for my friends to lead the way, as my feet were hesitant, and my heart trembled with fear. The height and motion overwhelmed me in each step I took.
I crossed it.
I looked back, proud of my small achievement when suddenly my eyes reached something else, the faces not of fear, but of responsibility. Women, carrying water.
Everything shifted right there. What a fleeting fear for me was a relentless struggle for them every day. It wasn’t about overcoming the fear, it was about survival.
Access to safe water was still not reliable despite the presence of pipelines in the area. Women carrying doko could be seen early in the morning to fill their empty PET bottles with water, enough for maybe two days. And again, they would move in the same timeline, day after day, but until when?
In that moment, I was reminded that access to safe and clean drinking water is a human right, yet women carried that weight on their backs, holding their generations with them.
While I was wrapped in my fear of heights, they were wrapped in something far greater, a responsibility, as a mother, as daughter, as in-law, a woman. For me it was something motivational, their hard work reflected, but for them it was never a choice, it was a necessity. And that is where this year’s theme aligns- water and gender.
The access is equal but for the reach, women carry the burden, struggle, and they become the part of the vulnerable. What they have is endurance, but where is equality?
That morning in Baglung definitely changed something in me. I was reminded that my empathy was not just a feeling, but it was about understanding and recognizing what a temporary discomfort for some is a lifelong reality for others.
On this World Water Day, I ask you all, do we still wait?
