A couple of weeks back, on a whim (as I generally do) I decided
to take up CARE's Walk In Her Shoes challenge and walk 10,000 steps (a little
over 7kms) everyday for a week. This is the average women and girls walk every single day of their lives to get themselves enough water, food or
firewood, to get through the day.
Now, seeing that it was slightly more than the 10
steps I walk to the kitchen everyday (and complain if the zip tap on our floor is
not working and I have to take the elevator up) I decided this was
probably a good idea.
Of course, I'm neither 14 nor 52 like some other women who do this are, nor was asked to do this with a child at my hip or a pot of water on my head, this supposed to be easier
for me. Not to mention I was doing this was for a mere 7 days.
Keeping all this in mind, here's what I thought. "Dear Shaheen, you run
about 2-3 times a day, averaging 5-6kms, and walk quite a bit around. Of
course, you can do the 7kms. But hmm.. lets see if you will last seven days. And walk Every.Single.Day."
You see, the challenge I expected to face was discipline. The
only thing I have in common with these kids other than my gender, is.. well,
the age of my attention span.
Let's just cut the story short, and say I was proved wrong.
Day 1, I was loving it. I
walked to work and back, hit about 11,000 steps and was feeling pumped. Day 2,
I could feel my thighs and glutes, as I lay down in bed. Day 3, I went to bed
early. And by day 4, I was sleeping in 10 mins extra.
By day 7, I was wondering if I could do this for another week.
OK, so Shaheen is not as tough as she sounds.
Point being - It's hard work being these women.
You know, I grew up watching women labourers carrying heavy loads on their heads
working under the brutal Indian sun in construction sites.
And unfortunately, moving to a more developed country, I had forgotten what that was like.
I remember now.
The least I can do now is to encourage you to
donate to my page. My friends have generously donated $275 already, but with another $70, Care will be able to create a veggie patch
in a village.
Together, hopefully, we can stop some more women from walking 7kms everyday.
