10. Will You Think Twice Before You Turn on the Faucet?

Minutes after entering the house that I would be living in for the next three months, I learned that the water from the faucet doesn't go in your mouth or onto any sores or open cuts and scrapes.

Food and water are the most basic necessities of life. A person on average can only live without water for three days. It becomes less surprising that people would resort to ingesting any type of water they can find. Even if that water is contaminated with deadly diseases and bacteria.

The water in Uganda is contaminated with dirt, fecal matter, waste and disease. Stagnant water holes breed mosquitos who carry malaria. People and animals both bathe and defecate in a river which then carries that waste down stream where another family is collecting jerry cans of water for drinking.

Dirty water.

My team kept a large supply of clean drinking water at our house to refill our water bottles. Each jerry can of water was used for cooking, teeth brushing and drinking. We would wash our hands with faucet water and then use anti-bacterial hand sanitizer after.

At any given time you could see children trekking down the road with yellow cans on their heads, preparing to collect water from the river to bring back to their mothers. It is a child's job to fetch water from the closest river whenever it is needed.

Heading to get water.

The most common illnesses in Africa are transferred through the contaminated water: typhoid, cholera, dysentery, hepatitis and diarrhea. It is completely preventable too.

If clean water can't be found or afforded, purifying water only takes minutes. Filter the contaminated water at least once and then bring it to a rolling boil for at least one minute. When the water has cooled it is safe to drink.

Those extra moments of work can really save a lot of heartache and devastation and illness.