Water is Life

Re-posting from July, 11, 2014

"Water is life"

it doesn't take long to realize that the country of Ghana - the people - are highly religious (I think I wrote about this in last year's blog valentinecleanwater.blogspot.com).  Whether it be Christanity or Muslim - the people believe and live their lives with their faith in front everyday.

One of the things that I've heard from time-to-time last year's visit and this one is "water is life".  I think I had some appreciation for it from last year and up until I traveled to the north.  Water in the south difficult - bore holes, unpredictable Ghana Water, some rain water haresting and so on - but for the most part in the south there is water - unclean and clean.

In the north the phrase "water is life" carries more weight.  Bore holes are not as possible due to either the massive rock formations under the top soil or just no subground water.  Ghana Water is there - but not there.  The mesa of the north reminds me of a green West Texas - flat grass land spotted with trees.  Ground water is around - think of watering holes you might see in western movie.  Women and children leave the village every day to fetch water from the pond or stream.

So if you think things in the world are not real or you think getting that addition to your house done in 3 months vs 4 months - think about this - the people in the north are talking about that the territory has been guinea worm free since 2008 (look up guinea worm).  The PCG was one of several organizations that worked to find the source (ground water) and put the solutions and processes in place to erradicate the outbreak by 2008 - implication is it took several years.  Scary.

Just about every person I met in the north - Christian or Muslim - would say "water is life..." (with a slow thoughtful tone as if they were remembering/feeling a deep emotion) "...it's in everything we do and we are" after I greeted them as a LWW person. I get it.

We had lunch with a close friend of Dan's in Bolga on Thursday.  The gentlemen's name was Abbas.  Abbas is Muslim - Dan introduced me and Abbas sighed - "water is life".

I thought about titling this post "Guinea Worm" - Have you looked it up yet?