Water

For this blog post, I am going to talk about how Ghana has dealt with not having clean drinking water. There are no water reservoirs for drinking water like there are in the US. In order to have running water, you must have a Polytank to store the water, and similar to mini-water tower it has to be elevated. This way, people can take non-bucket showers, have faucets, etc. But as far as drinking the water goes, it is unsafe to do so. Either you must purchase a large water filter, boil your water, or buy water sachets. These sachets are made in each district town, but basically water is purified en masse and a machine puts it in a plastic bag, sort of like a square water balloon.
So, when you are travelling around Ghana you dont look for a water fountain, faucet, or anything like that. You look for these people that are selling 'pure water' on their heads.
On a side note, at the stations you wait in the vehicle for it to fill up and people come to try and sell you various items like toothbrushes, any type of food, nuts, and water, among other things; they also carry them around on top of their heads which A) is amazing B) looks really heavy and C) Ive never seen something fall off someone's head. Back to water, once you get the sachet you simply bite off a corner and drink. Its a pretty ingenious idea, but the downside is that empty water sachets are found everywhere. Instead of carrying my nalgene around, I just buy a water for 5 pesewas (3 cents) because its chilled, tastes okay, and I dont have to lug all my water with me travelling.