My mother was lousy at cooking. To her, cooking was more like an exciting experiment. You put some of this and some of that in a pot, and you wait and see what will happen. ¡§No experiments, no experiences." is what she would say when her experiment did not turn out good, and I heard thata lot.
My father was a good cook, and he loved to cook, too. He often said that he got my mother to marry him with a table of delicious food, not with a beautiful ring. "A family needs only one good cook," he said.
Now I am a cook myself. And I have my own restaurant. I learned how to cook from my father, of course. From him, I learned the art of cooking. But I did learn one thing from my mother. It¡¦s her famous saying: "No experiments, no experiences."
The idea may hit you once or twice a year. You come home on a hot summer day, hoping to have a cool bath, and find out there is no water. Then you see how important water is in your everyday life. However, in many parts of the world, water is not just about one's everyday needs.
In countries like Tanzania, water is hard to get, and the job of collecting water falls on women's shoulders. Girls are often kept home from school to collect water while their brothers stay at school studying. Studies show Tanzanian girls who live 15 minutes from clean water spend 12% more time at school than those who live an hour away. More time spent collecting water means less time for learning. For these girls, "Knowledge is power" is not just words; it is a sad fact in real life.
With less time spent at school, their chances of getting well-paid jobs are small, and they often have no voice in important matters, like who to marry. These girls are often married into poor families.