When Cape Town nearly ran dry.

What began in Cape Town did not stay in Cape Town.

The Water Hour did not begin in a studio, and there was no business plan behind it. Cape Town was moving closer to Day Zero, and all of us were trying to work out whether water would still come out of our taps.

We were counting every litre

After several years of drought, the dam levels kept falling and the restrictions kept getting tighter. “Day Zero” became part of our everyday language. We had buckets in the shower, the kitchen and the laundry. Every bit of water had to be used carefully, and often more than once.

There was plenty of information, but people did not always know what to believe. Some were convinced the crisis was exaggerated or even a hoax. Others were genuinely frightened. Where would we collect water? How much could we carry? What would happen if the taps were switched off?

I could also see water being weaponised. I noticed it in mainstream media and in the way information was being framed. I wanted to remove the angles as far as possible and give people facts they could use to make informed water choices. No spin. Just reliable information and access to people who understood the subject.

Something else stayed with me. In some township communities, people were saying the water crisis was not real because, from their point of view, very little had changed. At the same time, people in wealthier suburbs were blaming township residents for wasting water.

But think about how differently water was being used.

Many township households did not have baths to fill to the brim, washing machines running several loads, swimming pools, large gardens or big water tanks. Many people were already walking to communal taps, carrying water home and washing from basins. They had been born into a water crisis. Scarcity was not a frightening new event. It was part of everyday life.

When people in the suburbs were told to wash in a basin, save that water and use it again, it felt like a completely new way of living. Yet these were ordinary practices in many township homes. Suddenly, social media was filled with “new” water-saving tips that were not new at all.

That contrast changed the way I understood the crisis. Day Zero threatened the whole city, but it was not arriving in every household in the same way. For some people, the crisis meant losing conveniences they had always expected. For others, it looked very much like the life they were already living.

I created the Cape Town Water Crisis Facebook page because people needed somewhere to share information, ask questions and talk honestly about what was happening in our city.

Why live video made sense to me

By then, chronic pain and limited mobility had already changed the way I could work. I was waiting for surgery and had taught myself how to livestream. It gave me a way to use my community-building experience without needing to be physically present in a room.

I did some basic market research and found that people wanted reliable information from those who actually understood water. So I started inviting water professionals to explain the facts in language ordinary residents could follow. Because the conversations were live, people could ask their own questions while we were on air.

I called it The Water Show

I launched The Water Show in April 2017. I wanted water professionals and citizens in the same conversation. We needed to understand what was happening, but we also needed to build knowledge that would help South Africa become more water resilient.

Very soon, we were talking about much more than household restrictions. We discussed climate, infrastructure, governance, wastewater, alternative water sources and the inequality behind reliable access to water. A Cape Town conversation was already reaching much further.

Then people outside Cape Town found us

The livestreams made the community visible beyond Facebook. Journalists and researchers looking for the experience of ordinary residents began finding me through the Cape Town Water Crisis platform.

In January 2018, Al Jazeera interviewed me about Cape Town’s changing rainfall patterns. A few days later, the Los Angeles Times quoted me about the uncertainty around Day Zero and what rationing water looked like inside a home. IOL later included my call for residents to keep saving water, even when the projected Day Zero date moved.

Research students asked me how different Cape Town communities were experiencing the crisis. Radio and television stations invited me to speak, and international magazines contacted me for articles. I had started a community conversation from Cape Town, and suddenly our lived experience was travelling around the world.

From The Water Show to The Water Hour

The immediate emergency in Cape Town changed, but our water problems did not disappear. The Water Show became The Water Hour and continued through Water Forum South Africa.

The work later developed into Water Hour conversations with the South African Water Chamber. Guests have included Chamber leaders and respected professionals such as Benoît Le Roy, Dr Anthony Turton, Prof Hamanth Kasan and Fred Platt. We have spoken about resilience, failing infrastructure, the water-energy connection, wastewater, governance and the expertise South Africa already has but does not always use.

Those conversations gave me some of the most valuable lessons of the entire journey. They helped the public understand the water chain—where water comes from, how it is stored, how it is distributed and who is responsible at each point.

Another lesson that stayed with me was hidden water.

Until then, I thought about water use mainly in terms of what I could see coming from a tap. Hidden water taught me to look at the water used long before a product reaches my home—the water required to grow food, produce materials, manufacture clothing and move those products through the supply chain.

The hidden water in our clothing and food choices was staggering. An item does not stop using water simply because we cannot see that water in the finished product. Our water footprint is much bigger than the amount recorded on our municipal bill.

I found that knowledge empowering. It was not about making people feel guilty about everything they ate or wore. It gave us another way to think about our choices, what we waste and what we use for longer. Once again, having the facts allowed us to make more informed water choices.

Until then, many people spoke about water as though one organisation controlled the entire process. It does not work that way. Supply, storage and distribution are different parts of the chain, with different people and institutions responsible for them. If we do not understand who is responsible for what, blame can land in the wrong place and the people who should be held accountable can escape scrutiny.

The conversations also helped us understand water rights on private properties and put the cost of desalination into its proper context. Desalination was often dismissed as being too expensive. But expensive compared with what? If the alternative is not having water, the meaning of “expensive” changes completely.

That did not mean every price being quoted during the crisis was reasonable. The crisis created an opportunity for unscrupulous suppliers to jump on the bandwagon and inflate their prices. People needed to understand the true cost of desalination so they could separate legitimate costs from crisis-driven price hikes.

There were too many claims being repeated as fact, and some were simply untrue. Dr Anthony Turton is well known for saying, “Facts are our friends.” That line stayed with me because it captured exactly what I wanted The Water Hour to do.

Facts help people ask better questions. They help us make smarter water choices. And they help us understand who should be held accountable when something in the water chain fails.

Much of the City of Cape Town’s public messaging focused on residents and household water use. We were repeatedly told to use less water, and residents did have a responsibility to respond. But that was not the whole story.

Water was also being lost through leaks, pipe bursts and weaknesses in the municipal network. Repairing those leaks and managing that network were the City’s responsibilities.

The education we received through the South African Water Chamber helped people understand the difference between household consumption and water lost within the system. It meant residents could reduce their own use while still asking important questions. How quickly were leaks being repaired? How much water was being lost? Was the network being managed properly? And was the City taking responsibility for the part of the water chain that belonged to it?

Without that knowledge, it would have been easy for the responsibility to be placed entirely on residents. The facts gave people the confidence to conserve water and still hold the City accountable. The two were never mutually exclusive.

The South African Water Chamber speaks about using water to enable dignified employment, inclusive economic growth and a redistribution of privilege. That is an important reminder that water is not only an environmental issue. It affects health, dignity, work, the economy and the security of the country.

The Water Hero recognition

Mina Guli’s global water campaign later named me as one of its 100 Water Heroes for building water-conscious communities and connecting professionals and thought leaders in the sector.

I value the recognition, but I have never claimed to be the technical expert in the room. My role is to ask the questions ordinary people need answered, bring credible people into the conversation and help make a complicated subject easier to understand.

It still begins in Cape Town

It began with buckets.

The Water Hour now covers water challenges across South Africa and beyond, but its roots are still here. It began with falling dam levels, frightened residents, buckets in Cape Town homes and a need for information people could trust.

It changed my life too. Livestreaming gave me a way to contribute when chronic pain and physical limitations had closed other doors. A local crisis showed me that I could do meaningful community work from behind a screen—and that a conversation started in Cape Town could reach places I had never imagined.