W is for Water Congo vs. Alaska

It was just one glass of water in DRC, but this is where the taste took me.

(A to Z Blogs April 2015 – Back to Africa)

What I was tasting was rainwater from a roof in East Congo. Where it took me was Alaska right to the top of a glacier. How could that be? Whether it’s bottled or from the tap, our water tends to have any number of additives. Potable tap water is clean rather than pure. Bottled water is often the same. And although rain water can collect impurities as it comes through the air depending on where it is collected, I think our palates are used to the chemical cleaners of the modern age–and frankly don’t know what they’re missing.

For taste, though, nothing can match what I drank from a glacier stream in Alaska. At least I thought nothing could, until my host handed me the boiled and chilled rainwater in Congo. In the same way smells can transport us, so can tastes. What a strange phenomena to be sitting in the heart of Africa and experiencing a glacier at the same time.

______________________

 Kristin King is an author, publisher and co-founder of the nonprofit Future Hope Africa which is based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She is from Kentucky (USA) and lives as an expat in Holland.