South Africa’s second-largest city, Cape Town, is suffering a severe water shortage. Expectations to run out of water was first set for April but has been pushed back to July, when taps will run dry, the doomsday date known as Day Zero. The city is home to more than 4 million people. If Cape Town were to run out of water it would be the first major city to do so. According to the World Wildlife Fund Cape Town is not the only city that is in trouble. It predicts that by 2025, at least two-thirds of the world will be dealing with water shortages. Chief Executive of South African Tourism Sisa Ntshona said,
“We are re-calibrating our relationship with water, and we want tourists to be part of the solution.”
A big misconception is that the entire country is struggling with this water shortage. The rest of the country, including Johannesburg, the Cape Winelands and the whale-watching hub of Hermanus, is fine.
To conserve the scarce resource, the government is encouraging visitors and residents to limit their showers to 90 seconds, amongst other measures.
It is suggested that to manage the time, use a stopwatch or play one of several South African songs that have been shortened to two minutes. There are more than seven songs on the playlist, so you can wash to a new song every day of the week: Springbok Nude Girls’ Bubblegum on My Boots on Monday, Francois Van Coke’s Dit Raak Beter on Tuesday, Kwesta’s Boom Shaka Laka on Wednesday and so on.
