[imagesource: James Fowler]

Capetonians will never forget what it was like to live with the shadow of Day Zero looming large.

It was all rather frightening, and that’s before we mention the Day Zero mascot. There’s a reason somebody made a horror movie about Splash.

Those fears may have come and gone, but we should all continue to use water sparingly and wisely. If we don’t, and we have a year with terrible rainfall, we could still end up in dire straits.

Just ask people in the Eastern Cape towns of Graaff-Reinet, Bedford, Makhanda and Adelaide, who must be wondering why Cape Town received all the media attention.

The Daily Maverick went to investigate in Graaff-Reinet, and they found communities that have been brought to their knees:

“I can’t go to church any more,” Mongezi Monyeni, 68, said. “My body stinks. I can’t serve the Lord Almighty like this. I go to work and people gossip because of the smell. I just want to wash. It is difficult for us. We are slow. We only get far behind in the line. We often wait for water and then there is no more.”

…Johane Martins, 50, said the water shortages are just one of the things that have forced the community to its knees.

“There used to be little bits of work for us with the Community Works Programme, but no jobs are coming. The dam is dry. The boreholes too. In 16 years that I have lived here, we never had it this tough.”

…“I have a cup at home to measure drinking water for everybody,” Patricia Appolis, 32, said. “I have three children. They are 11, five and one years old. I am not working and if the water runs out you have to go buy at the store. It is R7 a bottle. Two five-litres must last us a week.”

10 litres of drinking water a week for a family of four, or five, is dangerously low.

Gift of the Givers delivers drinking water via truck, and the municipality has completely failed to provide for a community in need.

Open the taps, and here’s what comes out:

James Fowler

Clearly, you can’t wash yourself in that:

“There is no water for them to wash,” Corene Conradie from the Graaff-Reinet Water Crisis Group said. It is her grandmother’s 82nd birthday and she is texting family members to convey her congratulations as she is busy helping with water.

“The water has been brown since February. Two months ago the dam dried up. It was on 1% for two weeks.”

In a country where things don’t always go to plan (to put things mildly), South Africans have had to develop a unique sense of humour.

Even that has now failed:

One man comes to fill up beer bottles with water. “We used to joke that if the water was bad, we will just drink beer. Now we don’t make jokes about water any more. We are just gatvol.”

Graaff-Reinet is far from the only Eastern Cape town affected by what many have said is the worst drought in the past 1 000 years.

Let’s just be thankful that Cape Town was hauled back from the brink.

[source:dailymaverick]