The world's largest village on water: boats are only means of transportation, but biggest problem is to go to toilet

Can you imagine a village floating on water? The sea is basis of their housing development. There really is such a magical village in world, which is considered to be the largest water village in world. Especially since population of this village is small, even more than population of some villages built on mainland.

The population here is around 30,000. People live on water and don't care about food and clothing. The only thing that bothers them is that the toilets have a problem. This magical village of Ganviere is on north side of Lake Nokua near Cotonou, the capital of Benin in West Africa.

Residents living on water are worried about one problem. Going to toilet can be seen as a problem for them. There are only toilets in entire village, only thirty. In early years, medical conditions here were backward and quality of water was seriously polluted, local strictly forbade accidental discharge of pollutants.

Local authorities strongly control the number and location of toilets. If villagers want to use toilet, they must go to designated toilet. strong>. If there are many people, you can only wait or swim to nearest shore to solve problem.

Going to toilet is a trivial matter that is very easy for most people living on land, but for locals it is really a headache.

The reason inhabitants of this watery village choose to live by sea is because of foreign invasion of Africa in 16th century, plundering resources and seizing land. Bandits from different countries who invaded Africa took away all valuable resources here, after a small robbery, most people remained here.

In seventeenth century, when slave trade was frequent, remaining local population became object of their trade, so people here were forced to move to water to avoid fate of being sold live.

At that time, almost all tribal groups in Africa were not spared fate of human trafficking, and even some local tribes joined slave trade camp. Their main target was Tofinu tribe with a population of only 5,000. Fortunately, Tofinu people escaped, taking advantage of customs of other side not being able to enter waters, thus revealing story of their drift and life on water.

To commemorate survivors of tribe, therefore name of Tofinu tribe was changed to Ganvière, which means rescued. There are a huge number of villages to be found on this water, and inhabitants are almost all Africans who fled here to escape slave trade and were forced to live here.

There are 37 villages, and area of ​​these villages is much smaller than that of Ganvière. In recent years, Ganviere's population has grown, and population growth has led to a steady expansion of village's territory. Now has become most populous and largest floating village in world.

Because water village houses are built over water, building materials here are mostly bamboo and wood. Since house is in water, when building house, it is necessary to install a tripod at bottom of house. The height of tripod is two to four meters and height from surface of water is about one meter strong>.

Because they live on water, fishing has become main source of economic income for locals. Before these inhabitants lived on water, most of them mainly raised cattle and sheep. Fishing was really difficult for them, and later they were forced to come to surface of water and constantly practice fishing skills for their livelihood. Nowadays, fishing for inhabitants of Ganvier has become a piece of cake.

Now Gonviere has developed tourism with help of a special local habitat. The economy of Ganvière was not developed before arrival of tourists, but it was not a problem for villagers to eat and drink. After development of tourism, a large number of tourists have arrived here, who can rent local boats to get acquainted with fishing life of locals.

At same time, because the locals have lived above water for generations, they are especially concerned about water, on which they depend for their survival. Fishermen generally only catch large and old fish and are not allowed to use mechanical tools to fish.

Many fishing nets can be seen on surface of water, and some valuable fish are kept in these fishing nets. Local fishermen collect them and sell to tourists or locals.

The development of tourism gradually increases income of local fishermen. There are many guest houses and hotels here. There are even some mobile shops and entertainment venues that have significantly solved problem of local residents' employment.

Here, people have lived above water for generations and are accustomed to this life with water. Being largest water village in world, Ganvier is attracting more and more attention from people from all over world because of its unique aquatic life. Although life of locals is not comfortable compared to life of people in some developed areas of world, people here also live comfortably and spend happy time on water, which belongs only to them.