Sara Frans walks home with water under the hot Karoo sun in drought-hit Calitzdorp. Sara Frans has no choice but to walk about 7km every morning to fetch water, carrying two heavy 5kg bottles home — only to do it all over again in the afternoon. The long trek along the R61 in hot, dusty Calitzdorp has become all too familiar for the single parent of a 10-year-old daughter, done simply to get clean drinking water, as dry conditions have pushed the local dam level down to just 32.8%.
Stopped by the reporter and photographer on Tuesday, Frans stood catching her breath, holding a bottle in each hand. “There is morevuilgoed[dirt] than actual water, so I have no choice but to walk elsewhere to get water,” said the woman,who did not want to say how old she was. “This is making me older than I am …
it even makes me look older than I am. “I fetch water from there every day,” she said, pointing towards what looked like a small round structure far out in the field next to the road. She said her worn plakkies were no match for the burning-hot road.
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“They swell up and they hurt all the time, but I still have to walk … there is no other way to get water, or rather, clean water.”
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