Water and Sanitation in Ghana

For those who have been reading my blog for a couple of years, you may remember December 2010 when I limited my water usage for a week of advent and donated to Charity.Water - one of my favorite charities. Issues of sanitation and clean water access were incredibly clear to me in my travels to Ghana. My disclaimer: These are my opinions, impressions, and facts I have collected both in Ghana and through the internet. I do not claim to be an expert on Water, Sanitation, or these issues in Ghana but simply want to offer you my perspectives, experiences, photos, and some resources.

Just to give a brief overview... Even in the capital we were not supposed to brush our teeth with the water and were told to 'keep your mouth closed' in the shower. All of our water came from sealed plastic bottles.

The 'sewer' is an open air trough running along side the road. It is not uncommon to see folks stopping and using the bathroom by straddling that sewer. As you get outside the urban areas water running from taps is a luxury very few possess. According to the CIA World Factbook there is very high risk of food and waterborne diseases. According to Water Aid Ghana, 70% of the population does not have access to safe drinking water. In the cities, those who can afford it, buy water in sashays - pictured below. The huge litter problem this creates is a topic for another blog.


A number of aid programs 'help' with a variety of solutions. For example, USAID funded the installation of water collection towers, as did Rotary. As you can see from the photo, USAID's tower doesn't work. The rotary towers actually all seemed to be working - though I didn't get a picture of those.


Digging boar holes and putting in wells are another 'improvement.' Unfortunately, many of these stop working and/or become contaminated. As you can see in the one photo, the tap is padlocked. We were told this happens when they are experiencing a water shortage. They will un-padlock it after they feel the water table has risen enough. Then once it drops, re-padlocking occurs. So, clean water is still not necessarily available consistently.

Most common in the rural areas, up north in Ghana, are the water holes. They are either naturally occurring or 'bowls' built up by the people to collect water when it rains.

One of our community guides filled his empty water bottle with water from the water hole so we could see the contrast with our bottled water. Keep in mind, some of the most dangerous things in that water are invisible to the naked eye.

While just looking at the water hole, we could almost delude ourselves into thinking that people do not in fact drink this water but as if on cue, after most of the students had walked away, this little munchkin came for a 'refreshing' drink.

Women and children walk to these water holes to gather water for cooking in the morning and the evening. If available women use jerry cans or buckets. Some use large bowls. The community we were in used buckets. For our amusement, we got the pleasure of trying to carry this water.

You will notice that the women who have to do this daily do much better than we weaklings do. Some even carry the water with a baby strapped to their back as well.

So, what is a solution you may ask? One small scale solution is a water filter. There are a number of for-profit companies that produce filtration systems that clean the water for individual families. We had the pleasure of visiting one such company, called Vestergaard Frandsen. They produce the Life Straw and Life Straw Family.



A number of our students (pictured below with our bus driver's son) fundraised more than $1,000 to purchase some of these filters to take to one of our partner communities.

The students taught the community leaders how to use the filters.
First step is to hang the filter, as gravity is key.

Dirty water goes in the top. Clean water comes out the bottom.
With the Queen Mother (leading lady in the community) getting the first taste of the clean water.

Though, all were soon enjoying some clean water (you can see the difference with the bottle of dirty water in my student's hand. She was having the kids point to which bottle had the 'better'/ safer water).


The women even tried out the filter, since it will be their job to use it in the home.

For less than $30, dirty life-threatening water...


Is transformed to clean, safe water.


I leave you with one of the best PSA's I think I have ever seen - as this brings the issue of clean water to your kitchen. Think about it next time you drink from the tap, brush your teeth with that water, or fill a pot to cook your dinner and thank your lucky stars for the safe water that runs from your tap.

Animal Adventures in Ghana

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh MY! Ok, that should actually read, monkeys and elephants and crocodiles, OH MY! Among my many Ghanaian experiences, the wild animals were definitely a new experience.



The first 'wild animals' we got the pleasure of meeting were Mono Monkeys in Tafi Atome. Tafi Atome is a small village in South East Ghana - near the Togo border. Back in the day, the people that lived in the village believed that the monkeys were the spirits of their ancestors - if I remember correctly. They were a traveling people and the monkeys followed them. They stopped traveling when they reached a place were the monkeys could live. They peacefully co-existed with the monkeys. When the Christian missionaries came in, they almost completely wiped out the monkeys. They told the locals that worshiping the monkeys was evil, wrong, etc, etc and that they should kill the monkeys. Fortunately, some of the mono monkeys escaped the massacre and were discovered by a scientist years later. The scientist worked with the community to protect the monkeys and develop their town as an eco-tourism site - having a good chief, that external funding, and a good peace corps volunteer also contributed to making this work. So, they have been protecting the monkeys, there numbers are on the rise and the community has benefited a huge amount. The entrance fee helps to pay tour guides that are the top students from the community. This allows them to save and hopefully go on to tertiary education. They have also been able to build a primary school. Their project attracted national attention and so they got a nice paved road (rare in Ghana outside the major cities) to help encourage more tourists to visit.

Just a normal day, feeding a monkey a banana :)

After the monkeys, our next animal adventure occurred at the Mole National Park. We stayed in the lodge on the property that overlooks the water hole. We also took two different 'safaris' - one in the evening and one in the morning. The most prevalent animal was the Kob. Due to a lack of predatory animals, they are similar to our deer in many parts of the US - they reproduce and nothing slows them down ;-).




There were two other kinds of antelope-like creatures but without a telephoto lense, the pictures are fairly difficult to make out. We also saw baboons and a number of species of monkeys - again, most were hard to capture with the quality of lense I have but the baboon turned out alright.



And you can see the red monkey. Note the baby hanging on to the mama monkey for dear life as it runs away :)



The warthogs (Pumba - for all you Lion King fans) were some of the friendliest and most adorable little animals. Not that I would have pet one, but we could get close before they ran away with their little tails held high! If you remember the Lion King, you will notice that in fact it is not 100% accurate. Pumpa's tail is always raised like a little flag, when in fact warthogs only raise their tails when they are running away. It allows the other warthogs to follow I am told. Since they have no neck, they kneel to eat like in this photo.



One of our most exciting sightings at Mole National Park was... a HYENA! In the four years the prof I traveled with had visited, they had never seen one (we didn't believe that they actually lived there). Our safari guide had not seen one in over a year. Again, he is hard to see in this photo but if you look to the top left you may be able to spot him.



AND the most EXCITED experience of Mole was without a doubt, the elephant sightings :) I think the photos speak for themselves...



After leaving Mole National Park. Our only other animal adventure was at Hans Cottage - a hotel and restaurant that protect a small lagoon where crocodiles live. It is also home to a number of bird species. The 'Weaver birds' as they were called are very impressive in their nest building. Both of these help to attract tourists to the place.



So PRETTY!

He is ugly... and scary!


As you can tell, I was not afraid at all to have my hand bit off by a wild croc.

Thanks for reading about my many animal adventures in Ghana! In case, it was not clear, this was a VERY small portion of my Ghanaian experience... So keep reading for another part of my experience.