Like Water for Foreigners

In my first hostel in Sydney, there were a couple of very polite signs in the bathroom suggesting ways to save water. There was nothing in the second hostel or the Brisbane hostel I stayed in, about saving water or Australia being in the middle of a drought and, therefore, under some pretty severe water restrictions.

I guess each household takes the restrictions with their own grain of salt. Turns out, as I was given a gentle introductory lesson on doing dishes in a drought last night, my house is on the more conservative side in terms of water use. The recommendations include not rinsing your dishes after soaping them up; I find this incomprehensible, not to mention disgusting. I will do my best – already on my way to taking a four-minute shower – but it will take some getting used to.

But what amazes me is that there is virtually no instruction for tourists on water restrictions. The sign in the first hostel merely made it a suggestion to save water if you can, but gave no indication of why. Have tourists given them reason not to waste their time educating, or are the hostels just too lazy? It is a sad state of tourism when we go to another country expecting to conform it to our level of comfort instead of opening our eyes to another way of life and really getting to know the place we have entered and their struggles. I know that’s how tourism works, unfortunately, and probably especially for American tourists, but it’s still sad.