After long seasons of drought, many rural communities in southern Ethiopia found themselves facing another threat last week: floods. A sudden and torrential rainfall destroyed Ketele Pond (pictured above, in a photo taken during our visit last August), leaving many families without a reliable source of clean drinking water. Oxfam is now working with local aid groups to help people come up with alternative solutions.

 At about the same time, 2 million of us in the Boston area faced a drinking water crisis of our own, also dubbed the “aquapocalypse.”  The coincidental timing  got me thinking about the parallels and differences between our communities–and what it really means to run out of water.

For more, read my blog about it at Boston.com.