The water experiment

One of the MANY lessons I am learning during this training is how to purify your water. Now I don’t mean going out to buy a Brita water filter so that the water that is running out of the faucet tastes better, no I mean purify water so that it is potable. To me this was a completely foreign concept not to have drinkable water available.

Clean water. Throughout my entire life I have never had to worry about something as simple as finding and drinking safe water. But over the last two months this reality has been shattered from Togo, to Ghana, and now in Liberia. There is water everywhere but not a single drop to drink.

Due to this problem, I have been purchasing all of my water. Thankfully, each country that I have visited, the water has been very cheap to purchase. So I haven’t thought that much about it. Well the other day in class, my Nigerian teacher Dayo, stood up and told us that he has not purchased water for the past 10 years. WHAT? HOW?

Dayo then proceeded to explain to us how to purify water with the elements that God has given us. So all you need is…. (drum roll please…) the SUN. Yea the SUN. Crazy, right?! So I decided to give it a try.

THE WATER EXPERIMENT
Step 1: Get clean and clear empty water bottle
Step 2: Fill water bottle with visibly clear water
Step 3: Get something black to put under the bottle (i.e. garbage bag)
Step 4: In the morning place filled dirty water bottle and place it on black object in a sunny area.
Step 5: Wait 4-6 hours (the sun will kill germs in water)
Step 6: Take water bottle inside and keep until ready to drink.

So at the end of the day what did I get?
1500ml of clean potable water
Cost: 0.00


* I would like to report that I finished my 1.5 liters of water and have not had flinch of a stomach pain or any even loose stools… HORRAYY!!