Water... It is said differently in every language but every country has it. However not every country has access to clean water at all times. This is something that I definitely took for granted.
Here we can use the water from the faucet to wash dishes but it is not good for you to drink. You will be sick for a couple of days if you do. It isn't as bad as some countries but it's not like America. So for drinking water you have to order the 5 gallon water bottles (19L). This means that all the water you consume should come from these bottles or you can buy the 1 liter bottles from the convenience stores. Water bottles are actually pretty cheap here. A 5 gallon water bottle is $3.50 and a refill is $1.25 or the 1L bottles are $.30. So pretty inexpensive.
The problem (that we run into) is when you run out of water. To get a refill for a 5gal bottle we have to call our "water guy" (the guy who brings us the refill). Our water guy is often unreliable. He will say he will be over at a certain time and then he never shows up. Or we call and he is out of town and won't be back that day.
Today we emptied our 2 5 gallon water bottles and called our guy (we order 2 so that we don't run out as fast). He said he would bring over 2 bottles at 6:30. But he didn't show up at 6:30. Then he said 7:30. He didn't show up at 7:30. Then at 9:30 he confirmed that he wasn't coming (Shocker!). We usually have extra water in pitchers in our fridge in case this happens. However tonight we had friends over and we exhausted all of our water and we were in desperate need for a drink!
So I decided to go to one of the 4 convenience stores around our apartment to buy some 1L bottles to last us the night. So I walk downstairs and across the street only to realize that it is 10:05pm and the store closed at 10pm. I missed it by 5 minutes!!!
Water is a necessity for life and it stills baffles me that I can't get water whenever I want. If you run out of water and wait too long, then you're out of luck!
Only when this happens do I realize that I took for granted the luxury of having access to clean drinking water at all times. Oh how blessed we are in America to have access to clean water!