Water

Ernest told me yesterday that there is no central water supply in Kumasi, no water treatment plant. Homes and buildings all pump water from the ground. This is pretty incredible for a city of 1.5 million. It makes sense why the water so often goes off but I’ll have to check out the facts. Our water has now been off for going on four days. The problem is not the source but the pump. There is plenty of water we just have to go down stairs and carry it up in buckets, but the water is not the same water we usually have running through the tap. On the second day of no running water I met the landlord downstairs and he showed us where we could fill buckets from a large tank. He helped us fill our buckets and I eyed the suspiciously murky water but carried it up. We have separate water for drinking and cooking but we still need water for bathing and flushing the toilet and washing our hands and . . . washing our plates. Now I have giardia. I have had it so many times before that I instantly recognized its undesirable presence. I know as soon as I can get meds from a pharmacy I will improve but it’s Sunday so this means one more day of nausea and running back and forth to the toilet. I think I also now need a doting relative to help fatten me up. Those pounds gained bite by bite with Blue Bell ice cream in Texas are now just a memory. Ghana why are you being so difficult?

Clement just came up with a bucket of water (I finished off the rest with all my toilet flushing) and says that now the tank is dry. We are completely out of water both dirty and clean. This is not a personal torture, this is not a personal torture, this is not a personal torture . . . .