When I worked retail I used to work with this old Nigerian (or Kenyan, can't remember exactly) lady who used to describe walking several miles a day to fetch water at a pond. She said you used to have to watch out for Crocodiles or whatever to not get eaten. She never complained about it as a young girl.  Edit: Because of Canada's temporary foreign workers program I have had a chance to work with very interesting people from all over the world, she was certainly one of the nicer and better ones. She was a total badass shitlady, super hard worker.