It is indeed difficult to describe the mood of people in South Africa in the moment – and it gets even more complicated if and when one looks at the Western Cape. The drought in the latter slowly but surely creeps into the minds and hearts of those until now still ignorant of “Day Zero”, the day the City of Cape Town runs out of water. The consequences are harsh: the prospect of queuing for 25 L of water every day triggers now runs on the shops to secure enough drinking water – since days it seems almost impossible to get the 5 L still water containers – as soon as the truck arrives the water supposed to be stocked is sold out. But it’s not only water – the hunt for water-less hand sanitizer and plastic containers adds to the dooms scenario experienced by the woken up shopper in our days. Social media is full of sort of advice how to save water and stories are told around the dinner table how to cut down shower water use to under 2 liter while catching the grey water for flushing the toilet. Amazing times for Cape Town.
Spiced and interlinked because bulk water supply is normally belonging to the national sphere of government is the chaos triggered by state capture and it’s related parliamentary inquiries, not to forget the not so smooth farewell of our President Jakob Zuma, who simply refuses to resign to the dismay of many in his own party. While the opposition party of the DA is aggregating itself in Cape Town and the EFF keeps abusing those in despair for the own political gains of their “commander in chaos” the overall picture one could get overlooking South Africa in total is that of a soap opera playing out in such an unbelievable way that the viewer would say this can’t be real. But it is – South Africa at its best and the mood, one is in, swings from despair to amusement, from “I can’t believe it” to “it only can get better”. People are either surrendered to whatever comes next or they are on edge – it is difficult to remain in a space in between.
In all this social, emotional and political turmoil one keeps working and wondering what’s next hitting the fan and making life somehow “more interesting”. No place for the faint-hearted..
Filed under: Africa, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, South Africa, Uncategorized, Africa, cape town, Day Zero, Jakob Zuma, south africa, water
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