Update: Just for clarification: this photo was not distorted for any effect, only tonal corrections where applied to the raw file. The man in the image is roughly 60 years old, a now retired municipal worker, extremely skinny and in a bad health state.
I am just coming from the shower, having had my share of the 200+ l/head the typical European consumes per day. I grew up and live in a region of our world, where clean drinking water neither was nor is a scarce ressource – it’s a commodity, available in apparent abundance, for a reasonable price (the bigger part of the price comes from the sewage treatment anyhow).
But I have seen regions of our world where this is not the case. Regions, where children or elderly people die because of the lack of clean drinking water. Regions where you call yourself lucky if there is a single water outlet on your premises which, and this borders on sheer luxury, provides clean water at least for the greater part of the day. This old man in Kalmunai, Sri Lanka, now is in this lucky situation, and he is grateful for it. A much too big number of people is not.
So if you get the opportunity, support the cause of clean drinking water wherever possible. It starts with asking smart questions, at home, and might end with support for one of the many NGOs that are active on this field. I myself will continue my support for and cooperation with a German NGO, EMAS, and set up and monitor a project providing drinking water especially for victims of the civil war in Sri Lanka.
