Well, The Kpong Airfield Hilton is normally blessed with running water – yes real pure drinkable running water! Nevertheless, although we are right next to Lake Volta, the largest (in area) human-made lake in the world, and even though we had lots of rainstorms in the past few weeks, our poor water taps did no more than an occasional embarrassed dribble last week.
According to rumour, the main water pipe broke somewhere near the town of Kpong, and it took four days before it got fixed. The wise people (Jonathan + Patricia) who run Kpong Airfield had planned for this eventuality by installing a 3000 litre tank on our own private water tower. Unfortunately, seven AvTech girls, four facilities staff, two management staff, visitors plus your thirsty scribe mean that the tank lasts for three days of normal use. On the fourth day all taps again dribbled in that embarrassing way.
What next? Well, we’re all supposed to maintain a full bucket of water in our bathrooms and there are oodles of old mineral water or soda bottles with drinking water in the freezer. Those water bottles are kept nice and cold as long as there is diesel and the generator is working. When those bottles became dry, we had to go out and buy sachets of water. Sachets are little plastic bags of water that you can get all over Ghana, and if you buy a particular brand of sachet, you are likely to not get sick!
Fortunately, at the end of Day 4, the mains water got fixed. Having mains water running most of the time is actually rather nice and it allows us to have those deliciously cold showers each morning –brrr!!!
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