Language is just a finger of speech -Kofi

Ghana is a developing country. I wonder if it would be offensive if I called it a developing country when I reference it in my conversations here. I haven't actually tried doing that yet, but whenever I get into discussions about Ghana versus America, or Ghana versus China (it happens often because it seems that a lot of people think I'm from China), I never refer to Ghana as being a "developing country." Is the word "developing country" or "third world country" a pretty universal term, or is it something that has evolved only in American English? Is it offensive? Would the people of Ghana find it offensive if they knew how the rest of the world classified them?

The illiteracy rate in Ghana is very high. I wonder if many Ghanaians even know how the conditions here compare to living conditions in the rest of the world. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to to try to create sanitation and hygiene programs and enforce them when many don't even understand these concepts.

There are so many issues to tackle to pull Ghana into a more "developed" state, I can't even begin to organize in my mind how I would go about solving these problems. Here is just a short list of what I've noticed so far..

Drinking water - the only water that is guaranteed to be safe is imported and packaged in plastic bottles. Bottled water is expensive here (little less than $1usd), most of the time costing more than an actual meals themselves (which range from 50 cents to $2usd). Most drinking water is sold in plastic sachets (known as pure water). These sachets are claimed to be filtered water, but research in the past has shown that over 70% of these sachets contained parasites. I drink pure water. I've gotten a couple of funny tasting bags but for the most part, it hasn't been anything that my immune system isn't able to handle. And for less than 5 cents a bag, it's completely affordable.

Sanitation and Hygiene - (In my experience...) About 98% of the time, public toilets don't flush. Also, almost 100% of the time, there is no toilet paper in the stalls. If the toilets don't flush, it's usually a good indication that the sink isn't going to work and that there is probably no water to wash your hands with. Once in a blue moon, there is soap available. The worst is when you get your hands all soapy and then you realize the water doesn't work. It's happened to me twice, I had to buy sachet water to rinse my hands and I felt horrible for wasting drinking water like that. But anyways, you can imagine how many diseases can be transmitted as a result of this. Public health officials promote hand washing after toilet use, but how can that even happen if there is no water and soap to wash your hands with? If I had money, that I could either spend on food or on soap and water, I think I would rather spend it on food, yea?

Food - There aren't really anything like grocery stores here. Well, there are, but all the produce and meats inside are ridiculously expensive. Most people do their shopping at the markets. In the markets, you have many ladies selling various vegetables and meats, right on the side of the road. Most of the meats are covered in flies, but no one seems to be bothered by this. I guess they figure that after they cook it, any possible disease or parasite will be killed anyways. Is that true through? I'm not sure. It's very unappetizing to walk through though.

Pollution - As mentioned earlier, everything gets burned. They could reduce plastic consumption, but everything comes in plastic bags here. Everything. When you buy anything from the market, they give it to you in plastic bags. I mentioned this in my last post. How do you even begin to reduce plastic consumption if its literally everywhere? It's so cheap too. In terms of costs, can we really expect Ghana to start purchasing biodegradable bags to pass out? The cars also pollute. All the cars here seem very old. Tro-tros drive down the street emitting black smoke sometimes. Fixing cars and finding mechanics are probably very expensive here. There is also a lack of mechanical equipment and supplies to fix these vehicles. A lot of times, I see cars dumped on the side of the road. It's quite sad.

Alright, time to go! I will write more on this later.