This morning there were 20 minutes of glorious rain over Cape Town.
While the amount of rain that fell was fleeting, it has lifted the spirits here in Cape Town, especially after the front page of the New York Times yesterday.
The article by Norimitsu Omishi and Somini Sengupta was slightly alarmist and had some glaring inaccuracies. To paraphrase William Gibson “The water is here, it’s just not evenly distributed”. What this means is that for the central business areas and tourist-heavy areas of Cape Town it will be business as normal. The Waterfront, the major hotels and all production resources have made a plan for the unlikely event of Cape Town reaching Day Zero.
South Africans are resourceful and have managed to make a plan to bring two million litres of off-grid water to service the influx of visitors associated with the Cape Argus Cycle Race being run on the 11th of March.
In our own small way, Gatehouse is working hard to make our shoots as water-neutral as possible and to responsibly resource our office and shoots with water that does not come from the municipal supply. Rest assured you are not contributing in any way to the depletion of our water reserves. If Cape Town can service the 35 000 riders coming into our city for the cycle race, then we can service your shoot and the city has factored all tourists staying in our city into their equations.
We still expect anyone arriving in Cape Town to manage their consumption responsibly (no baths, short showers, reducing the loads of washing by not having the hotel replace your linen every day), but rest-assured we are constantly assessing to make sure that your shoot experience here in Cape Town is the same exceptional experience that you are used to.
All my love
Bev
