Water in a Dry Land

How many of you were born in 1996? My list of Live Oak kids adds up to about 9 born in that year. Ten years ago Texas had a severe drought and we’re having one again this year. A drought map of Texas shows a huge swath of extreme drought right through the middle, from the Panhandle to the Valley. There is severe drought in East Texas and moderate drought in far west Texas. Lack of water plus extreme heat adds up to fire danger. We have 254 counties in Texas, and 226 of them have high to extreme fire danger. I saw a news report in which a reporter measured the temperature of playground equipment at noon—a swing, 124 degrees; a slide, 136 degrees; wood chips on the ground, 142 degrees! The only wet areas in Texas are in the upper coastal region, including Houston and Galveston.

At my house last Friday it started to rain—for just five minutes—not nearly enough to water the grass. Farmland is even more important. Without a lot more rain, this year's drought may be a worse disaster for Texas agriculture than the severe drought of 1996. The International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology is meeting this weekend in Houston, but no amount of scientific knowledge can make up for the lack of rain and the reduction of water in our ground and surface water supplies.

None of this has affected me very much at all. I can wash dishes, laundry, the car, or myself without a second thought. Hot, cold, or warm running water is available for my every need. Watering restrictions are minimal. My stepdaughter lives in San Diego, a large city built on the edge of a desert. In many dry cities and now even in Austin, restaurants spray mist over their patios to keep their patrons cool and moist. When I drove by one the other day, the wind was blowing mist up and into the air, possibly adding to the humidity while air conditioning adds to the heat.

In preparing for this Water Ceremony I have been reading about drylands, especially in the continent of Africa.

Two and a half years ago, the United Nations passed a resolution naming 2006 as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Human impact and climate change are the most pressing issues. Deserts are expanding and the crops can’t grow. Damage to the land affects one third of the earth’s surface and over a billion people.

Deserts are home to some of the most interesting plants and animals—all kinds of plants, mammals, rodents, and reptiles. This International Year includes a celebration of the fragile beauty and unique history of the world’s deserts.

Does anyone know how big Africa is? (11,700,000 square miles) . . . It’s three times bigger than the United States (3,787,000 sq. miles). North America (9,449,460 sq miles). We have 50 states; Africa has 54 countries, alphabetically from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Just like we have a lot of different climates, even in Texas, the continent of Africa has mountains, tropical rainforests, grassy savannas, 3 large deserts, and the world’s longest river.

The three deserts, the Sahara, Kalahari, and the Namib, all together cover more than a quarter of the continent. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world, crossing part or all of eleven African countries. The name Sahara comes from the Arabic word for desert. The Kalahari, meaning “the great thirst” is a cold, rocky desert in southern Africa. The Namib, meaning “desert” in the Nama language, lies in southwest Africa. The Namib one of the hottest, driest places on earth, with even less rain than in the Sahara.

Another important geographical area is called a savanna. It has tall grasses and a few scattered trees and bushes; good for grazing animals like elephants, lions, tigers, giraffes, and zebras, but not for farming, because the topsoil is too thin.

The Sahel is the strip of land that separates savanna from the desert. Sahel comes from the Arabic word for "edge" or "border" because it is the edge of the desert.

The Sahel is shrinking fast. Animals have been allowed to graze on its fragile land, which has destroyed the vegetation. People who live in the area cut trees and bushes for fuel. Without the trees and bushes to hold it in place, the thin topsoil is of the Sahel blown away, leaving stony land where not even grass can grow. The Sahara and the Kalahari Desert creep one hundred miles closer to one another every year as desertification and erosion spread.

When water is scarce, people figure out ingenious ways to collect it. One way is to put large curved leaves on the ground at night. What happens during the night? Any moisture in the air condenses and is caught in the cup shape of the leaves. In other places there are plants that store a lot of water in their roots. People dig them up clip the tip of the root, and squeeze moisture out of them.

Here’s an experiment you can do at home. Get a plastic bag and tie it around the end of a leafy branch on a bush or tree. Check the bag the next day and see if there is any moisture inside the bag. It’s best not to taste the water, because some plant leaves contain substances that are poisonous to humans. Different kinds of leaves and different times of year will produce different amounts of water. I don’t have a plastic bag this big, but a large oak tree, altogether, gives off as many as 300 gallons of water vapor every day!

During the rainy season many parts of the world get too much rain too fast. There are monsoons, tropical storms, typhoons, and hurricanes in various parts of the world: This summer, that includes the Sahel, especially in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Philippines, southern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, west Texas, Mexico and New Mexico, and Chile. Hundreds of thousands of people have died or been displaced.

And we must not forget that almost a year ago, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast experienced devastating floods when the levees failed. They have yet to recover. We are planning a special service here on Tuesday, August 29, to remember the people and animals that died or were displaced, and to celebrate the progress people have made since then to rebuild their lives.

Way, way back in the first time, when everything was new, there was a group of Aboriginal people living on a mountain in Australia. It was a lovely place, but everyone was worried. It had not rained for a long, long time and they were very short of water.

They had some wells but these, except for one, were empty. When it had rained before, the water had just run down the side of the mountain, into the sea, which was far, far away. Now, on the other side of the mountain, there were just some big, dry plains where nothing grew.

Weeri and Walawidbit were two greedy men. They decided to steal the last of the water for themselves and then run away.

In secret, they made a large water-carrier, which was called an eel-a-mun. When everyone was asleep, they stole the water from the last well and hurried off.

When the people woke up, there was no water for them. This was very bad, because there were little children and babies needing water and also the old people. And also, it was very hot.

The Elders called all the people together and it was then that they saw that two men were missing.

Looking around, they found the tracks of the two men. Quickly, the warriors followed these tracks, which led down the other side of the mountain to the big plains and they could see the men in the distance.

The water-carrier was very heavy and Weeri and Walawidbit were walking slowly because they thought they were safe. However, when they saw the warriors coming they ran, too.

The best spearmen in the group ran to a cliff which jutted out and threw all the spears they had. One hit the eel-a-mun and dropped off. However, it did make a hole in the water-carrier. On and on across the plains ran the two men. They did not notice that the water was leaking out until the carrier was almost empty. Finally the warriors caught up.

Now, this was way back in the first time, when very strange things happened. So the warriors took the men back home and the Elders called a big meeting. It was decided that the two men had to be punished for stealing and also, for thinking of themselves first and not the community.

So the Wonmutta, the clever man, made some very strong magic and Weeri was changed into the very first emu. He went running down the mountain, out onto the plains, in shame. Walawidbit was changed into the very first blue-tongued lizard and he crawled away to hide in the rocks.

But, a wonderful thing had happened. Wherever the water had leaked onto the plains, there were now beautiful billabongs, or waterholes. There was grass and flowers and lovely water lilies and then there were shrubs and trees. And soon, the birds came and everyone was happy because there was enough water for everyone.

[i] “How the water got to the plains,” as told by Olga Miller (http://www.dreamtime.net.au/water/index.cfm)