Fetching Water by Liv Przydzial

Fetching Water

by Liv Przydzial

Somewhere in Northeastern Mexico, 2040

Gasp! I woke in a cold sweat, not remembering where I was or what I was doing. I took
several wispy, shallow breaths as I tried to work out the situation. It was probably three or
four in the morning, ‘cause Momma was starting to wake. I laid back down and tried to
calm myself and clear my head, but my thoughts swirled around in my head like a violent
tornado. The hollering of men. Gunshots. Yelling. Mothers shrieking as they watched their
children fall dead, with bullets shot straight through their hearts. Papa hollering for us to get
down and move fast. Momma looking for the twins, Carly and Jenna. Carly being shot
through her head as she let out an earsplitting screech in agony. Momma shaking in horror,
sobbing, trying to keep herself together. Papa grabbing me with his big, strong hands as we
neared the edge of our Texas City home. Papa telling us to run as fast as we could straight
ahead. Papa running back to the chaos to help the wounded. Waking up the next morning
to distant gunshots. Walking for days and days and days, only stopping for water at small
brooks and streams.

The War has long since been over. The small hut that my family has called home for
these past few years was barely standing. I don’t even know how old I am, or where exactly
we are. Everything about the War has since been a blur for me. Jenna didn’t even know she
had a twin sister, or that there was a war. Momma was always so sad and miserable without
Papa. But I know he’ll be back one day. He wouldn’t just leave us. I gently touched the little
amber necklace that hung around my neck. Papa had given it to me on my tenth birthday
back in Texas, and I haven’t taken it off since. As I wondered about when Papa would come
back, I slowly dozed back off, leaving my troubled mind elsewhere.

* * *

“Lori, wake up. Lori, come on,” Momma urged me. My eyes fluttered open and I saw
Momma sitting on the floor by my blankets with her legs crossed. I groaned as I pulled myself
out of bed. I thought of the long day ahead of me. In Texas, a so-called ‘long’ day would be a
day of school with a test or quiz. And I would complain as if I was in the worst situation ever.
Never had I imagined my days to be ‘long’ in this sense. I pulled myself out of my tangled heap
of blankets and reached over to poke Jenna, who was snoring, immersed in what seemed like
her hell-bent attempt at hibernation. “Come on, Jenna,” I said, “It’s time to go fetch water.”

Pulling on my old, raggedy shorts, I thought about the long trip ahead of me. I’ve been
going to the stream for years now, ever since we came here. Jenna was tossing her blankets
into a heap in the corner of the room, groaning each time she had to bend down. I grabbed my
ten-gallon water jug from the ramshackle table near the door and called for Jenna to hurry up.
She grabbed her jug and handed me my canteen of water as she swung hers over her sunburnt
shoulder. We hurried out of the house. It was better to get all of the water chores done in the
mornings and sometimes the evenings, when the sun wasn’t out frying you like a helpless little
worm on a frying pan. It was still dark outside. The air was still and not a breeze drifted through
the land. It was hot and humid, but nothing to complain about, especially considering what it
would be like later in the day.
I looked out at the vast land of nothing but parched, cracked dirt. The only living things that
I could see were the occasional desert spoons, dispersed in this wasteland. We started walking,
both of us almost completely ignoring the aching of our legs from the work of the previous day.
We started at a brisk pace, wanting desperately to get back home and let our sore bones rest.
But in a place like this, resting was not an option. It was fetch water or die, whether you liked
it or not. Neither one of us expected that today would be the day that only one of us made it
back home.

Oppression in Sub-Saharan Africa's Slums by Liv Przydzial

Oppression in Sub-Saharan Africa's Slums

by Liv Przydzial

Imagine, that in this world,
Millions upon millions live in 
constant, 
unrelenting,
gripping 

fear.

Fear of losing their homes,
if one could venture to give such primal dwellings a name.
Five to a room is considered lucky,
even luckier if that room had a scavenged, makeshift roof to protect from the elements.
Such rooms were arranged nearly on top of one another,
in an overcrowded, Ghetto-like arrangement.

Fear of disease,
from each other and from neighbors.
Entire families, even blocks, wiped out by diseases,
in the span of only a few days.
A flavorful palette of pathogens,
run rampant through the cities.
Those infected,
dead within a week.

Fear of not finding water,
in which many thousands die each day from dehydration.
No water was to be found here,
not a single drop.
And if happened to be water,
it was far, oh so far,
from being up to drinking standards.
One either died from thirst or from water-borne illnesses,
there was no in-between.

And such fears, only a few from the endless list,
continue to ravage the continent.
Millions of people struggle to survive,
fighting to live while seemingly,
the whole world was against them.

And to say that the world was against them,
may be a stretch,
but maybe not to such a dramatic degree:
the rest of the world turned its back on these millions upon millions,
leaving them helpless and unheard.

In blissful ignorance,
the rest of the world watches.
as more and more of Africa's urbanized poor
fall into the inescapable trap, that many refer to as 'slums.'

Context:

“While its [sub-Saharan Africa’s] total population has multiplied by 2.5 over the past 30 years, its urban population has multiplied by five,” from the report, Urban Planning and Environment in Sub-Saharan Africa, from the Africa Technical Department Environmentally Sustainable Development Division, confirms the mass migration of people to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’s cities from more rural areas. In such cities, a massive 72%, nearly three-quarters, of the urban population resides in slums, as revealed by the State of World Population 2007 UN Population Fund report, which further commented, “In sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization has become virtually synonymous with slum growth.” Home to two of the world’s largest slums, South Africa’s Khayelitsha (400,000 residents) and Kenya’s Kibera (700,000 residents), SSA’s rapid urbanization and slum growth have become a significant, urgent issue. The United Nations defines a slum household as one that lacks one or more of the following: protection against extreme weather, no more than three people per room, access to safe water, sanitation (private/public toilet shared by a sensible number of people), and security of tenure (legal rights to property). The UN-HABITAT State of the World’s Cities 2006/7 report also remarked that “...Sub-Saharan Africa’s slums are the most deprived; over 80 percent of the region’s slum households have one or two shelter deprivations, but almost half suffer from at least two shelter deprivations,” illustrating just how deprived sub-Saharan Africa’s slum living conditions are. The article “Towards Africa Cities Without Slums” from the magazine, African Renewal, published by the United Nations, further discusses how the critical living conditions of slums promote the spread of diseases. “The lack of adequate sanitation, potable water, and electricity, in addition to substandard housing and overcrowding, aggravates the spread of diseases and avoidable deaths, according to a recent report of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.” The crucially oppressive slums of sub-Saharan Africa bear hefty implications, such as encouraging the spread of diseases and implicating low life expectancy rates and low fertility rates. If action is not taken to gain control over the growth of the slum population (via urbanization), sub-Saharan cities will remain largely impoverished in severe living conditions, ultimately stunting the region’s growth as a whole in long-run.

Unit 1 Voice Challenge by Liv Przydzial

Unit 1 Voice Challenge

by Liv Przydzial

In Unit 1, our class discussed how to dissect and analyze an author's structure and diction. One of the key topics we learned about was voice, and we did several exercises aimed at helping us develop our very own voices as young authors. In my December blog post, I just wanted to play around with different voices portrayed through my writing to challenge myself a bit, as exhibited below:

Example 1

Everyone was looking at me. I mean, how could they not? With my perfect bod, sparkling dress, long curled hair (each curl with the perfect level of bounce, of course), and manicured nails, it's visibly hard for people to take their eyes off of me. I was stunning. As amazing and gorgeous I looked, my science project was even cooler. Not only was my volcano oozing with lava at the perfect consistency, but it was also bubbling! As soon as they turned the lights out, everyone's socks would be knocked off by how the lava glows in the dark. I know, I'd be speechless too. God, I should be in college already! They should've engraved my name into the first place trophy for this year's science fair as soon as they saw my name on the sign-up sheet.

In this first example, the reader can experience the cocky, matter-of-fact nature of the character through the first person point of view. Through questions such as, 'I mean how could they not?', and statements such as, 'God, I should be in college already!', the author's voice clearly conveys the character's cocky nature.

Example 2: 

September 21, 2067: 

I can't write much. No time. 

It's been 5 years.
I don't know how we haven't died yet. By we, I mean me and my sister. 
Every1 else - long dead.
Food's running out. Window's cracked. Water's tainted.
We'll only last a month or so, if even. 

But Shaya's started coughing. 

September 25, 2067:

Shaya's dead.
No water. No food.

I'll be dead by morning.

This example consists of two dark, gloomy diary entries. The choppy sentences create a more dramatic aura by being very to-the-point. Through the use of short phrases, the reader gets the idea that the character was in a rush, and gains an understanding of the dire nature of the situation. The character who wrote these entries clearly takes a very realistic, down-to-earth view on her circumstances, as conveyed when she made a prediction for how long she and Shaya would last and in the second entry with the statement, "I'll be dead by morning.' She doesn't make any hopeful remarks but rather just accepts her situation, as can be seen by how she stopped writing after making the conclusion that she would be dead by morning.