I suppose my title is not entirely correct as water is becoming a valuable luxury in more areas than just Butterworth.
It is now just over a year that Butterworth dam has run dry and still the demand for water is increasing drastically. My family is trained to save every drop they can get their hands on to. We have installed a tank and pump to collect rainwater, which doesn't help all that much when we haven't had rain for well over 2 months; although it is an absolute blessing when there has been rain.
Way too many people think the water issue will just "blow over" and still do not try to save water. Since the start of schooling we have all been taught "save water", "close/fix dripping taps", "do not waste" ...
For years there has been warnings to all communities to SAVE WATER ...
No one bothered and now everyone wants to stand with arms in the air asking "why??"
My kids have learnt : If you wash your hands, do so in a little bowl or jug and pour that water over into the drum in the bathroom holding water to fill the toilet cistern with. When they bath they use as little water possible and that water gets filled over into the toilet drum too.
Showering with a few buckets to catch as much water as possible also helps.
We do however have to keep collecting drinking water as the tap water is not as clean as hoped and since there is 2 babies in the house we have to continuously pre-boil all water that the babies use.
Everyday is a struggle, yet I suppose we should rather look at the up-side since we are still better equipped than many others who do not have any water/shelter and has many more needs than we do.
Now to get down to the point "we need rain - we need a miracle"
Water has been rationed from having running water for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night (some nights) we are now down to complete shut-down on Monday, Wednesday and Friday - so we are getting water (rationed still) on Tuesdays and Thursdays and some Saturdays/Sundays.
The situation is not improving - it just keeps getting worse.
People are too busy fighting over all sorts of other issues than to stand together and try save water.
