So there we were, on our December holiday, with only very sporadic water.
For some reason I could never quite make sense of, it often came on late at night and then vanished by about seven in the morning.
Having experienced taps running dry first-hand, I am now in a position to comment on what it will be like if the same thing happens in Cape Town.
I am aware that the challenges I faced on my water-scarcity-tourism experience are the realities that some people live with their whole lives.)
Every day, we went to fill two 20-litre cannisters at the collection point to flush the loos and for general household usage.
But some nights, it didn’t come, and as a result our sheets became gritty and greasy.
The three flushes worth of water we had in our cannisters were quickly used up on the times she managed to vomit in the loo.
The last drips were used to clean the floor from when she didn’t quite make it.
You can only collect so much water at the collection points, and when you use it up and things go wrong, life gets disgusting fast.
The horror is real; I have lived it.