When you can't drink the water...

There is something about places where you can't drink the water. They are like a hot girl with whom you think you might be able to trade affection for helping her straighten out her life, but you know that it will never quite work out. There is a dysfunction to places where the water isn't potable from the tap.. it's usually not just poverty. It's bad leadership, and often times corruption. Drinking water should be the first priority of any culture, and when I find myself drinking out of a plastic f-ing bottle, or worse, a plastic bag or one of those big blue bottles, I am struck by the idea that something is deeply wrong where I am, that greed prevails over logic, and that it's a lousy place to be in an emergency.
It doesn't take much for a hotel to filter it's water, but they don't make any money. If the bottled water guy is friends with the mayor, there likely is never water for a filtration plant this year. The other thing I hear a lot is that if the pipes are broken, sewage and tap water might mix underground, so you should drink bottled water. I don't think it's too difficult to test water, but you never hear of any data, just that you should buy bottled water for a buck a bottle "just in case". Pardon me for being suspicious, but all of this is dysfunction, honest or dishonest.
Somehow running water, clean water, is a metaphor for getting what you need. if you need to work or pay to get clean drinking water, this is a place where you can't truly meet any sophisticated expectations of life. the problem is that these kinds of challenges can be compelling, again, like the dysfunctional girlfriend.. perhaps all she needs is me.. a little European know how, a little American can do.
It does cost a lot to drill a well, thousands of dollars, but I find it funny when everyone has a sound system or a TV set, but they couldn't get it together to put 8,000 bucks together for someone to show up. It all gets into the peril of giving fish instead of teaching how to fish, the perils of aid dependency if you don't let a culture solve it{s own problems, and if you solve those problems, who are you doing it for, you or them. It's like having a teenage kid; you want them to stop being a punk because it's a hassle for you, or because you truly see something better for them? Would it be organic and natural, or forced?
Anyhow, just wanted to vent a little bit.  You see, I am sitting right now in a place where you can't drink the water, and I stared this post in another place a few weeks ago where you could. Both places have trucks and nicely dressed people and restaurants, but no one seems to care enough to take care of the common good here, despite a lot of talk about it. This is no charity case, it´s not hard to add a bit of chloride to the incoming pipe, it's indifference, cowardice, or fear... and seeing it that way helps me move on..