Vulnerable fear the drought
Cape Town’s poor don’t know how they’ll cope during water shut-off
CApe Town: At Cape Town’s Nazareth House, a care home for dozens of vulnerable, disabled and orphaned children, feeding time is executed with military precision.
The youngsters who depend on the Catholic charity’s care are fed according to strict instructions on a whiteboard that shows each child’s name and how much water they need.
“We make so many bottles a day – this is such a big place. And before you go to each child, you need to wash your hands,” care assistant Carmilla Slamdien said as she described the water-intensive routine of feeding, washing and sterilisation.
Nazareth House’s residents are among the city’s most vulnerable people.
They now face the prospect that their taps will be shut off within months as the three-year-long drought – the worst in more than a century – leaves reservoirs empty.
“Is there a plan? No. I can’t think of how we’ll do it after ‘Day Zero’,” said Slamdien, referring to the day when ordinary water supplies to more than a million homes will be shut off, currently forecast for May 11.
For Zone Janse Van Rensburg, an occupational therapist at the home who is eight months pregnant, “Day Zero” could bring real hardship.
Most Cape Town residents will be forced to queue at communal taps at 200 water points – likely under police or military guard – to collect a daily ration of 25 litres or half the amount allowed now.
“I will have a tiny newborn with no water which will be a massive challenge,” said Rensburg, 31.
“I don’t know what we’ll do. The whole crisis is just overwhelming. When you’re pregnant, they say ‘don’t lift anything’ – but then you’re lifting a bucket to flush the toilet.”
City councillor J.P. Smith, an official leading Cape Town’s drought relief efforts, told AFP that facilities like Nazareth House will instead be supplied by tankers or volunteers carrying bottles – but many locals have little confidence in authorities.
For many residents in Cape Town’s impoverished townships, the state’s failure to provide domestic tap water is an established fact of life.
Vuyo Twani was among a steady stream of residents in Langa township this week sharing a tap to fill plastic containers, as well as to wash chicken feet and rinse mops. “You don’t know if there’ll be water,” said Twani of the three taps that supply hundred of residents.
“If you can’t find any water I have to go the Shoprite supermarket,” he added. “That’s expensive.”
City officials estimate that informal settlement’s like Twani’s use just 5% of the city’s water.
He doubted that residents of Cape Town’s wealthier areas – which account for more than 65% of total consumption – would cope with water queues.