Togo Water Research

Togo Water Research
Togoville Togo
Friday, September 8, 2006

I received an email requesting the right to use my photos:

THE LETTER

I am doing a presentation on some research I did in Hyderabad, India regarding drinking water quality in slum areas. I did not take many pictures and now regret ut very much. Would you allow me to use some of your pictures i my presentation? Do you have any more pictures that you think may be applicable about how people store water in their homes?

Thanks,
Ajay

ANSWER:

Hello
Hello, Yes you can use the PHOTOS, However you must say.
Got from HoboTraveler.com and credits to HoboTraveler.com
MY site if FULL of water photos. Tons, Sewers. Etc.
Look at the recent newsletter full of photos.
Work on previous, HUNDREDES
Tanks on top is the big one, cisterns, and well with pull buckets.
Black Tanks

READ EASY ONLINE:
http://www.hobotraveler.com/newsletter-hobo-201-lome-togo.shtml

Well, obviously, I did not take much care in spelling; however, I know how people wait until the last moment to ask for this, they are never prepared. I got this email the day I was leaving Togo, sending my newsletter and leaving the hotel by noon, many needs before I left Togo to complete. I am writing this in Togoville, no internet, no connection, who knows when I will publish. However, the person may be doing the presentation the next day.

I have receive enough request to know they normally are not fast on the draw, then forget the persons they ask, I have two reasons I wish to share my photos.
1. I think research needs photo examples
2. It is an extreme effective way to promote.

I suspect 95 percent of researchers steal the photos and say they took them, ego is s big problem with researchers, and they do not like to admit they failed to gather complete overall information.

RESEARCH

To do research it needs collected, then categorized, and analyzed and written about while in the country. The person then can easily return to continue to collect photos, and document information.

The fudge factor is probably in my guesstimate used about 85 percent and actual clean data about 15 percent.
This means that 85 percent of all research done it just opinions and not research in my opinion, however, represented as core research with great methodology.

I collect information for the HoboTraveler.com web site, or this blog.

I collect photos.

I collect facts.

I do NOT try to put together into a completely accurate and 100 percent factual, if you read the top of this page you will see, I continually say these are opinions. I strive for facts, however the fact either do not exist, or are so laboriously difficult to learn.

Togo Water Research
I am in Togoville, on three occasions in either Cote d-Ivoire, Ghana or Togo I have purchase a BAD Tasting plastic sack of water, I am not going to say purified, as it does not say purified, however cleaner than normal water.

There are two types, one with a label, and the homegrown version just in a clear plastic bag.

THREE BAD BAGS
I do not drink water that taste bad, however, in reality it went down my throat for me to know it tasted bad.

I have had symptoms of fever or sluggishness, whom can say why, the variables, is too high to point the fingers, however it is possible and reasonable, my body does not like the two whiskeys shot size water I drank.

The body then spends the next day cleaning itself by having a fight inside the body.

I am sure my immune system will adapt and fight these problems inside the water, providing I am not undernourished or physically weak from improper food or other illness.
ISOLATION OF PROBLEMS

Using myself as the test subject or in colloquial terms, I am the Guinea Pig; I can slowly methodically isolate food and drink variables.

DO NOT DRINK THE WATER

I believe this is impossible, or almost impossible task, I believe everyone who travels anywhere whether the wish to or not drinks the water.

Brushing you teeth
Purified water that is not purified
Dishes washed in normal water
Foods cooked with normal water.
Any non-cooked foods cleaned in normal water.

Maybe there is an amount of water the body can deal with, adapt and not have problems, maybe it is just drops. I am more or less positive everyone is different; some are hypersensitive to new bacteria of an area.

HOW TO NOT DRINK THE WATER

I carry a large, I guess about 2.5 gallon or 10 liter buckets of sorts, it the bottom of a new plastic gas can, cut off at about 12 inches high and now carried for about five years in the bottom of my bag. It has many functions.
http://www.hobotraveler.com/newsletterhobo090.php

I NEED RESERVOIR OF WATER

I need a tank of boiled water; the only water I would come close to really trusting is water I have boiled with my one-cup water cooker. I would need to clean the backpack bucket with boiled water.

This whole process is fraught with problems.

The most difficult is to how to boil one container until it is disinfected, I need a large container, then a smaller container. For enough water or a reservoir of sufficient water to keep 95 percent free from drinking the water or having normal water enter my body, I need probably 2-3 gallons per day or about 6-9 liters.

The bottom line is this, no traveler, not tourist I have ever encountered purchase 9 Dollars or 9 Bottles of purified water per day. Therefore, everyone drinks the water.

The also must cook all their own food, 99 percent are too lazy to cook their own food, it is just too encumber some to figure out how to cook, where to cook, etc, it is a major problem to do so, then the kitchens provide sometimes are a disaster for health. No cleaning of dishes, common plates, any hot water, etc.

For research I should go to a five star hotel, walk in, and sell myself as a travel guide writer, I can then get a tour, inspect the dishwashing facilities and see how well the wash dishes or disinfect.

The average Joe Blow travelers or tourist does not know how to purify or clean water to an extreme level of safe.

I personally do not care; I drink the water, seeing as one of the least dangerous of problems. I see walking as the most dangerous thing I do, the cars of the planet are large rockets wanting to hit me.

However, I do not encounter bad tasting water in bottles or bags of what is suppose to be cleaner water. I have, however not very often, if the local tap water taste bad, I do not drink it, if the water is very cheap, then I drink the bag water.

Here in Togoville, I do not think you can buy bottled water, if you can it is ridiculously price for the delusion of not drinking the water.

I suppose there is an argument about the idea, if I only drink small portions of bad water, like when I brush my teeth, it is not enough to cause a problem.

I do not know how much is needed. How much bad water is needed to infect me, it like the AIDS or SIDA question, how much blood must pass from one body to another to become infected? Is it simple or a complex number of times needed, with a bloody intercourse needed?

On the door of the Hotel is a graphic sign saying how to use a Condom, it is funny and good idea. However, I think if they said, or showed the sperm sitting in the body can kill you graphics, the Condom would be used more.

In the end, the cost of Condoms is too high for Africa; sustainable use has to be so cheap nobody even cares. The cost of a sack of water here is .25 or one-forth a 100 Franc coin. This is too much for most. .25 Franc is.. hmm?

It is about 5 cents U.S. per half pint of water. 5 cents U.S. is too much, and people drink the water rather than buying water.

A Condom cost probably about 50 Cents U.S, or maybe three for one Dollar. The average price in 80 percent of the planet is probably about three for a dollar.

One dollar is the number the United Nations uses for what is poverty, below one dollar per day is poverty, and above is not poverty.

I can hear a couple saying, let pool our money take half of it and buy some condoms, we can have a party.

People couple of have S E X, nothing in Gods world can stop it; it is the most guaranteed thing on the planet, maybe after drinking water.

Cost of water Research.

In the end there, is a long list of Variables that need adjusted to provide clean drinking water to the world?

Traveling fast and quick is not conducive to me boiling water. I have a great laugh at the Camel Back Reservoirs of trend now in Travel Gear, how in the world do I clean the inside of one of them? I just see this as a ludicrous way to carry water, except for a trekker or biker. However, I do not believe they are drinking pure water; it is always a little bad.

I am not carrying a bottle here, water is too plentiful, there is a little bag of water stand, complete with insulated cooler on every corner, not a problem to find cold sacks of what may be cleaner water, but my guess is no, and now that I have drank three bags, spit it out, threw it on the ground, practiced being a litterbug, I know, the bags are not safe or I think the are not safe.

Public shaming or world shaming to me is a big solution, we have checked this company’s water and it has shown to be lousy, it is not pure water. The leader of the country owns the company and he is a jerk. Said by the no balls United Nations.

Stopping the bad is more of a solution than showing the good, what is left over is good, after you stop the bad. I believe most water ventures are owned by governments, and the money is sacked by the leaders, this is a money making venture, they do not fix the problem.

In conclusion, to do research on water is a long-term complex problem, not simple, takes extremely ridge controls by the scientist. The wanna be scientist, maybe someone like me, starts to know. I am writing a joke, it is not correct, and a real scientist would become increasingly frustrated until they see, this is no-win situation.

They would say to themselves,
- I am not going to spend 3 years in Africa to do research; I will be paid the same if I make up the figures. -

To implement the solutions is almost impossible.

Forget all the research; try to figure out a cost effective, cheaper than dirty solution to cleaning and purifying water. Scare the locals, tell them why they die.

Appeal to their vanity, you have this skin or hair problem because you drink the water, I think that would work… hehehe

Togo Water Research

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Short-term flu-like symptoms can be experienced after eating or drinking some components of plastics. I believe TFOE's are the likely culprits, as backpacker's find after eating scorched or overheated food cooked in pans with plastic stick-free coatings (Teflon) that's been subjected to heats over 500 degrees Farenheit whereupon some "morphing" takes place. Not generally harmful, though it is usually avoided by stirring with wood or soft plastic utensils and not scraping stick-free pot coatings with metal -- or using non-coated pots. Aluminum pots are lighter than steel to carry and the new hard anodized variety of aluminum pots conduct heat better than steel or titanium and hard anodizing prevents aluminum from leaching out into food, a concern in itself. Titanium (Ti) is very light, but tends to scorch easily - it is also available with non-stick coatings for easy cleanup. IMO, the newer hard anodized aluminum pot sets are cheap, hard and durable as steel, clean easy and are very nearly as light as the spendy upper-end Ti pots.

My guess is that your bad-tasting water bags were made with a non-food grade plastic that's leaching chemicals into the water. Yeech...followed by Sick. I think maybe springing for a portable water filter and refilling your own bottle is the lesser of two evils. You mileage may vary...

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