Five women under one roof trying to aid and support one another through their personal challenges while dealing with issue of unclean water, or as Erika Dickerson-Despensa puts it “cullud wattah.” The production of the play called “Cullud Wattah” introduces the lives of three generations of Black women living through the present water crisis in Flint, Mich. In the midst of the play, it dawned on me that I had assumed everything went back to normal for the residents of Flint since there hadn’t been any updates in regard to their water condition.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

3,245 days and counting the residents of Flint continue to be without clean water. Ron Fonger from mLive stated back in January 2023 that, “The state of Michigan has said it will continue to provide free water filters, replacement cartridges, and water testing kits in Flint until the city’s service line replacement program has been completed.” Since then, according to a recent report from the City of Flint’s official website written by Caitie O’Neill, “The boil filtered water advisory is not lifted for the city of Flint, effective 10:15 a.m. February 13, 2023, following two consecutive 24-hours testing rounds. This mandated sampling was conducted at 10 sites throughout the city of Flint and the results were negative for Bac-T.” For eight years the residents of Flint, we’re living off of bottled water and yet the country continues to go about as normal without a second thought about seeing if the issues had been fixed. However, Flint isn’t the only place dealing with a water crisis. Jackson, Mississippi is currently  going through a water shortage. According to The New York Times, “[They] have been forced to endure chronic boil water.”

Let’s see how long it will take for this situation to be resolved.