Water, Water everywhere and not a drop to drink !

As I've mentioned before, South Africa is a first-world country with third-world problems. Maintaining the infrastructure here has become a major challenge for both the National government, as well as municipalities throughout the country.

Water is an ongoing challenge here in Port Alfred. Most cities here I South Africa actually have very good water systems that provide excellent tap water....... certainly better than St George water. It's a bit of a different matter here however. The water here is full of a variety of noxious minerals which makes it very bitter. On roof that, the system of pipes is very old resulting in numerous "water outages".

Its the only water available in the township here, but most of the Port Alfred resident have large, 1,000 gallon "rain barrels" that they use for culinary water. Many homes have two or three rain barrels. It does rain here enough to keep the barrels full nearly all the time.

Unfortunately the water here in the complex where we live has only the municipal tap water, so it's off to the water store each week. Yes, that right....... the water store. That's all they sell. We go through about 20 gallons of filtered water each week for cooking and drinking. At first it was a bit of a drag, but I quickly realized that this was giving me for great exercise. You see....... everything has it's plus side.
Below is a picture of a typical rain barrel that you would see adjacent to most houses here.