Stories and News No. 1289
We are almost there, my friends. Hold on, please.
In a month the great show will begin.
But who would have thought it would be an opportunity to do something right, supportive, in one word, human?
Apparently, despite the considerable environmental impact and exorbitant costs, perhaps for once the end will justify the means.
Because, listen, from the tournament start, 140 fields will receive at least 10,000 liters of water a day for about three weeks. Fresh water, right? It has been previously desalinated, with all the necessary economic and industrial efforts, in addition to the environmental ones, as already mentioned. But this is an opportunity to be tolerant, because the survival of millions of people is at stake.
Now I haven't counted them all, but 140 fields is an important number, and 10,000 liters of water to drink a day is a real godsend.
I am obviously thinking of the fields, that is the camps with the largest number of inhabitants, such as Bidi Bidi, in Uganda, with its 270,000 refugees fleeing the civil war in South Sudan, and Kutupalong, Bangladesh, which hosts Rohingya refugees, competing the sad record of presences with the previous one.
Ten thousand liters of water a day would be an incredible blessing, where even a single sip can affect the possibility of surviving the next day.
But the list is long and it is really nice to be able to announce this magnificent news.
I imagine the joy in the other African camps, like obviously Dadaab, in Kenya, for the most part inhabited by Somali refugees due to a cursed "civil" war again, even if I still miss the reason why we persist to call it that way. What is civil about exterminating entire generations of families?
Of course, we all know where an essential part of the responsibility for such tragedies comes from and it is certainly not local stuff, or at least we should know.
Nonetheless, this is not the time for condemnations, but for applause and thanks. When the rich in sports and oil come together to do something good, it must be recognized, period.
And what's better than water? None knows better than Syrian refugees in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and the migrant citizens in the Traiskirchen camp in Austria, the Tamil refugees in the Mandapam camp in India, or the Sudanese ones in the Pugnido camp, one of the many in Ethiopia.
But, as mentioned, the list is really impressive between Africa, Asia and in particular the Middle East, from the camps in Pakistan to those in Burundi, Algeria and Thailand, Yemen and Rwanda.
A real world championship between communities that team up at all times, a single body between those in need of help and those who cross the border or the whole world to give a hand.
A board of challenges against thirst and even hunger whose players and their most courageous actions should thrill us all, also because the favorable outcome is the victory called survival.
Well, they do not represent the solution to every problem and certainly do not offer absolute guarantees for final success, but with 10,000 liters of water we help to win everyone, and isn't this the noblest meaning of sport?
...
Well, I must apologize... but I got carried away by enthusiasm. Or overconfidence, you know, but I misunderstood how it sometimes happens to me, with advancing age. Apparently that mountain of water that would help prolong the lives of millions of human beings, mostly women and children, will serve to cool another kind of camps, or fields.
10,000 liters of water for 140 football fields by day in preparation for official matches and as many even for the 130 ones dedicated to training.
I leave you with the multiplications, the due sums and the inevitable subtractions...