Epic nights out in Johannesburg can take a sour turn when water outages turn toilets into biohazards. (Photo: Michael Tullberg / Getty Images) Imagine this: it’s two in the morning, and you’re dancing in a nightclub that’s packed to the rafters. The DJ is playing a great set. Your friends are dancing next to you. The night feels like it couldn’t get better.
Then nature calls. You head to the bathroom and are confronted by a nightmare. The taps are dry. The toilets are backed up. And you desperately need to pee.
Welcome to my Saturday night in Selby. The industrial suburb in Johannesburg is home to many of the city’s factories and a thriving underground music scene. I’ve previously reported on how the crisis has affected one of those industries and have now personally experienced how it affects the other.
As Johannesburg’s ageing water infrastructure buckles under the weight of high demand and low maintenance spending, the crisis is encroaching further into homes, ruining businesses and crashing the party.
So, how do you survive a night out when the taps give up? It depends entirely on where you dance.
Some nightlife venues are luckier than others. A few have access to boreholes and water tanks and have barely felt the pinch, while those on Melville’s trendy 7th Street have been badly hit by persistent water outages — just last week, they underwent a brutal five-day dry spell.
For Ari Shapiro, owner of Jo’Anna Melt Bar on 7th Street, water outages are just another line item on the daily to-do list. Keeping the doors open now relies on a patchwork system of store-bought water for patrons, recycled greywater for cleaning, and a whole lot of heavy lifting with buckets.
And toilets?
“You come up with a system for it,” Shapiro explained. “You can’t flush after yourself. My staff have to come in and flush after you. It’s not really an attractive environment to attract new customers.”
But not all businesses have fully adapted yet. That is the situation I found myself in last Saturday, when there was not only no water in the taps, but also no buckets of water in the toilets.
I resorted to buying a bottle of water and using that to wash my hands. And if you’re planning a night out in Johannesburg any time soon, a bottle of hand sanitiser and a pack of tissues will be a necessary addition to your survival kit. DM