In 2007, Lynda Gehrels (now Lifewater Canada’s president) used her 35 years experience as a Registered Nurse to help prepare Health and Hygiene lessons to share during her first trip to Liberia. But all her preparation didn’t prepare her for what would transpire in the middle of her disease transmission class.
Twenty-five men and women, with several toddlers and a few babies wrapped around their mom’s bodies, attended the three full-day training sessions. The information was simple in concept — offered through skits and stories using photos, and presented with constant individual participation required. There was lots of hands-on training, and by the end of the second day, people were getting very comfortable with each other.
“I was sharing again how unsafe drinking water was the reason why so many suffered from running stomach (diarrhea), with the wee ones and the elderly especially prone to getting ill and often dying,” Lynda recalls. “It was a lesson I had covered numerous times before, but this time I noticed one of the older women in the class start to silently cry, tears running down her cheeks.
“Later, I shared a taxi home with her daughter-in-law. Her tears started to fall as she explained that in the class, her mother-in-law had realized that the tradition to give every one-month-old baby in her family their first drink of water had directly led to the death of two of her grandchildren. They had spoken together after the class and she had found the strength and faith to forgive her mother-in-law. My tears were the only consolation I could offer as I listened to the grief and pain in her words.
“My second trip to Liberia painted a bright rainbow around that painful memory. I met with these two women and they were so happy to share their success story. While they were visiting a relative, a child had gotten very ill with diarrhea, and the village was far from a clinic. But they were able to use the information they’d learned in the workshop and the child was able to regain his strength and live.
“Although it didn’t dim the sadness (of the two grandchildren’s deaths), it offered some balancing joy that this life would be spared to grow and bloom! That’s pretty great fruit from a simple hygiene lesson!”
