I was woken at 4-30am with Mike leaping out of bed telling me he was going to see if water was flooding into the guest room. Rain was pouring down and the guest room door is not far off the ground. One of our water tanks is not far from the door and it was overflowing. Mike donned on warm clothes, grabbed an umbrella and went to put sandbags against the door. I went and stood in the guest room while this was being done. He started walking around the back garden. I waved feverishly to him to get inside. Imagine if Morgan heard a noise and looked out her window to see someone with an umbrella right outside her cottage. After the other day’s intrusion, it would freak her out. It was wonderful to have the rain, but it’s not forecast to continue. We need days and days of this in order to prevent more critical water shortages this coming summer. We just have not had enough. There’s a website – www.howmanydaysofwaterdoescapetownhaveleft.co.za and it updates daily. It’s not encouraging.
They say dam levels will drop to only 10% capacity on 22nd October, way before the massive influx of tourists for the holiday season. Cape Town is going to groan under the weight of demand for water over Christmas with tens of thousands more people in the city and with summer temperatures pushing up demand. Altogether it is a stressful time for the city fathers to try to find solutions.
I sometimes think our hygiene has been compromised due to the dwindling water supply. Perhaps in the past we were over-clean….showering twice a day, laundering as often as we liked, brushing teeth leaving the water running, flushing the toilet as soon as we had used it and a couple of times when we were cleaning it….all that water rushing into the sewerage system. Now we flush using rain water from the tanks. We are getting strong carrying buckets of water in. We use it for cleaning the windows and the floors, washing my hair (when the sun is shining), flushing the loo and many other household chores. When Mike was compelled to get our tanks back in October 2016, we never saw this coming. What a blessing they have been.
Amidst it all, we trust the Lord who knows all things and has the entire world’s rain supply in His hands. He see’s Cape Town’s needs. We will hope in the Lord our God.
Jeremiah 14:2
Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are you not He, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for you do all these things.
#385 of my 1000 thanks is for the end of the day. I was thinking about this last night and thanking the Lord for the end of the day, when everything is done and I climb into bed and snuggle down to watch something on You Tube. It’s a great time.
I’m realising that this is a really early blog. I thought I would just start it and ended up finishing it. I’m about to start work, will have my ladies’ meeting later and more work this afternoon. Then it’s the weekend!
These are the days!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂