Water

There are definitely things that you take for granted back home that you can't really take for granted here. Clean water being one of them. I always use a Brita filter back home but wouldn't refuse tap water if that is all that was available.
Here I definitely don't drink the water.
I do brush my teeth with the water. I can't be bothered to use filtered water for that and I haven't had a case of Delhi belly yet (knock on wood).
I could imagine that the fear of getting sick could ruin a trip here for some people. Someone once told me that everyone they knew that had been to Egypt got sick. I was perfectly fine when I went. I wonder if people think that they should get sick so they feel like they are queasy even though they aren't. I look at staying healthy as a challenge.
There are a few additional steps I do take, like at restaurants I always ask for my drink without ice because you can never be sure if the ice is made from tap water or not. One or twice I've forgotten and I'm still here. With iced tea (which, FYI, is so good here!) you kind of need the ice so I only get that at coffee shops where they definitely use filtered water. And I wash my fruit off with filtered water.
But one thing I never thought about when it comes to water is that it could run out...
Yesterday when I got to work there was a sign on the bathroom door "no water". Turns out that our tank was empty. I never really thought about where the water comes from, it is just there. Turns out that most places have tanks of water that need to be filled. So the people came to fill the tank mid-way through the day and all was well...but I must admit that there was few times during the morning when I was a bit worried that we would go all day without water. Yikes!
I was walking around my neighborhood last night and noticed that most of the houses do have water tanks on their roofs; mine probably does too it is just not visible. I guess my landlord takes care of the water being filled up. I've been here almost 2 months now and haven't run out of water yet. That would be miserable; especially since the heat is back with a vengeance (and it is sooo humid!). Definitely very uckey. I'm a fairly low maintenance person but not being able to take a shower or use the toilet (yikes!) could be my un-doing.