My vacations are always bookended with the same ceremonious experience, filling up my water bottle from the Portland Airport; a desperate instinctual response to the lackluster water outside my home state. International air travel means sleepless nights, microwaved plane food, and 18 ounces of home. 18 ounces being all my hydro flask can hold, which I even contemplated replacing for a larger one with the sole intention of being able to bring a few more sips from home. My relationship with Oregon’s water is obsessive.
Oregon’s water is without a doubt the first thing I miss about Oregon while traveling. I’ve had conversations about tap water with Californias and even fellow Oregonians, but few share my passion for it. The idea of carrying a bottle of water across the world filled with specific water is almost surely the idea of a romantic. A romantic who loves Oregon’s water. A romantic who ensures his water bottle is filled the brim before takeoff.
Traveling outside of Oregon typically means having to buy bottled water for it to taste on par with Oregon’s. Ghana is an extreme of this situation. Buying bottled water is a requirement, not a necessity.
Ghana’s tap water is a mystery to me. We have been warned countless times not to drink the water, even to the point that we were told to brush our teeth with bottled water. There is a sense of mystery and risk surrounding the water. When traveling outside of Oregon I want to try the tap water and see what it tastes like, but in Ghana there is a risk.
While in Ghana we have been drinking only bottled water, as per instruction. Voltic, the mainstay for most Ghanaians as well as the oldest water bottle brand in Ghana, fill the metal bowls on hawkers heads lining the streets. Water sachets beat out water bottles as the preferred form of water storage. Sachets are small plastic bags filled with water. They mimic water balloons more than they do a water bottle.
Unfortunately, a large number of water containers end up in the waterways. While we drove around Accra we noticed communities with large rivers running towards the ocean. In every instance, the waterway was filled to the edge with plastic and trash. Although trash plagues their waterways and beaches, the majority of Ghanaians keep their physical home very clean.
The way water is used and treated in Ghana is a stark contrast to what I grew up around in the Pacific Northwest. We take our clean water for granted. I am all the more appreciative of what I will return home to, but also determined to inform others of the amount of trash we have to take responsibility for. After visiting Ghana I can say our trash problem transcends borders and is a fundamentally human problem.