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Water water everywhere... - M. Darusha Wehm
Living on the sea, water is the one constant in our lives. The oceans are so vast, it is almost impossible to describe day after day of seeing nothing but water in all directions. At times it feels as if the whole universe is made of water. But, of course the need for water, fresh drinking water, is one that we feel in our lives much more acutely here than we ever did living on land. Not only are we away from city mains with treated water supplies, and reliant on our own water tanks for our supply, but we have been making landfall in parts of the world where reliable drinking water is not guaranteed. In the year we spent in Latin America, we spent only three months in a country where you can drink the tap water (Costa Rica). The people living in Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Ecuador have to purchase bottled water to drink and for cooking, and some of these are the poorest people we have met on our travels so far. However, many of the places we visited where you can’t drink the water are not that poor: In Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador, the government is spending millions on a new bridge, when a fraction of that amount could be spent to treat the town’s water supply. Mexico is, compared to the other Latin American countries we visited, a wealthy nation and you can’t drink the water anywhere there.
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