No Water!!!

I am sure by now everyone has heard the saying, "Water is life". How true this statement is! The people of Kingston Jamaica have been seeing the reality of this more and more every day as this unusually long drought drags on. Residents and workers in the metropolitan region feel this more when it comes to piped water.

Since last year a lot of persons, myself included, have been living with water restrictions which seem to be getting even more stringent in the past months. When the first restriction was implemented, water was locked off at 10pm. a few months later it moved to 9pm, then to 8pm and then even to 7pm! Up to a few months ago it moved up to 5pm then to 4pm and now I have no piped water as early as 2pm! This is getting ridiculous now! And at this rate it seems we will be only having water for a few hours per day. I know it's a drought and we as humans have no control over that, but this problem is only compounded by the shortsightedness of the Jamaican governments and the ever worthless National Water Commission (NWC). Both these entities did not see it fit to increase the already inadequate reservoirs for the metropolitan area, which has grown (and is still growing) significantly since these reservoirs were commissioned.

Thanks to both the Jamaican government and NWC, the people of Jamaica are forced to suffer  from the scarcity of this precious commodity. It is true that one never really appreciates what one has until one looses it and I can testify to that. I took for granted the ease of life when these is a constant supply of piped water, but now I can definitely see how precious that privilege was! Now I have to go long periods without the precious commodity much to my discomfort as i don;t have a tank. It's even worse now that I am home most of the time due to this long span of unemployment. This lack of water has now forced me to adjust my lifestyle in so many ways. What do I mean? Well...

• Every day I have to catch water in jugs and pan before NWC locks off the water
• I only get to have a decent shower once per day
• If I need a bath during the lock-off I have to grab one of my 5 litre bottles
• If I have to do a big number I have to make sure I go early before they lock off the water
• The toilet doesn't get flushed often (that's putting it mildly) when I have to take a leak
• I have to force myself to cook earlier in the days before water is gone
• If I have to cook after the water is gone I have to make do with water from a bottle which makes cooking a real chore
• Dirty dishes and pots are piled up in the sink until the next morning
• Doing even the simple things like washing my hands is a challenge

These are just some of the things on the top off my head, but I am sure it will get only worse as this drought continues and the resultant water lock-offs intensifies. If this continues, life as we know it will get even harder and I am sure that cases of gastroenteritis and other poor sanitary practice diseases will surface and increase. We need the rain now, and a lot of it to quench this thirsty land and hopefully the idiots that run this country and the NWC will learn from this drought and it's effects. But then again, they all have tanks and can afford to get water trucked to them, so that's just wishful thinking.