Water, Water, Everywhere

I drink a lot of water over here - at least 4 or 5 bottles a day, sometimes 7 or more, particularly on days when I have an exceptionally sweaty workout (and yeah, that's almost every day). Fortunately, as I mentioned previously, there are stashes of bottled water everywhere around the camp - free for the taking.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture to the left (cheap camera!), the label says it's "a quality product of the Coca Cola company." That's a little bit comforting, but I think they're using the word "quality" in the Afghan sense of the word. Or to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, maybe that word doesn't mean what they think it means.

As far as I can tell the water is clean and potable, although we did just get a warning not to drink water bottled on two specific days (the bottling date is stamped on each one). 

Extra, unexpected flavors aside, there's also a lot of variation in certain aspects of this "quality product." For example, some bottles are fuller than others. Some are extremely full (i.e. all the way to the top) which makes opening the bottle a messy proposition. Sometimes the labels just fall right off, and a few times I've had bottles with two labels... which also fell off). 

If they can't get a consistent quantity of water into the bottles, it does make me wonder what other variations are tolerated in the bottling process. This hasn't stopped me from drinking it, but it does makes me appreciate the quality and consistency of American bottled products.