I know that access to clean water is one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today. For this reason, I had conducted chemistry experiments to determine which of three water purification methods currently used in many countries is the most effective in producing "safe" water: see GLOBAL WATER TAB and pull down to GLOBAL WATER PURIFICATION EXPERIMENT.  But I still had questions: how does the quality of drinking water differ between two neighboring countries? 

During my Sophomore year of high school, I was scheduled to travel to Uganda and Rwanda for gorilla trekking with my family.  I decided to take advantage of the situation and find out which of the two countries I would be visiting could boast of having the "cleanest" water in a given village for its inhabitants. 

I collected drinking water samples from Uganda and Rwanda (see pictures at left) and tested each sample twice across many different variables.  Here are the results of my experiment. 
As you can see above, both the Uganda and Rwanda drinking water samples tested positive for bacteria (!), but the water in Rwanda also tested positive for the presence of chlorine and for a pH level that indicated that the water was too acidic for human consumption.

Therefore, my water experiment concluded that the drinking water in my sample village in Uganda was safer than the drinking water in my sample village in Rwanda.