The fountain

Some children were playing by the fountain in the town park. It had stopped running but they didn't as they circled the rim dipping their hands in the remaining water flicking it over each other and scampering away as kids do.

Meanwhile a rather rotund man accompanied by his wife also walked through the park presumably admiring the view stopping a few steps from the fountain and looked at it with disgust. “This is scandalous”, he said as presumably his one pleasure was to see the fountain spraying water from its jets as he made his regular walk through the park. His wife nodded in agreement as he continued expressing his displeasure at the inconvenience this had caused him.

Then I thought of the millions of people in the world that had no means of access to potable water for their needs. There women or children were having to walk miles to a water source to fill up their rusty cans or used plastic bottles with water from a well or other supply that may well be contaminated with sewage or chemicals and animals just to quench their thirst in their parched country.

Then I felt ashamed for this need not be the case for providing people with the basic necessities of life was not that expensive compared with the amount of money that the developed world spends of armaments, and luxuries, and food that is ultimately wasted and then thrown away.

We can send astronauts into space to the moon and probably to other planets too but we ignore the fact we can’t look after many people in this world properly despite our ability to do so. This is because we are just like that man in the park annoyed that the fountain in the park is not working and are completely mindless of our neighbours in need.

Image found at www.wateraid.org/