For months, residents of L'Espluga de Francoli have been saving water in bottles and foregoing showers to cope with long hours of daily water rationing as northeastern Spain suffers one of its worst droughts in decades. "We keep water in bottles so we can brush our teeth and wash our faces in the morning," says Maria Gonzalez, a 24-year-old nursing assistant. Three times a week, a tanker truck spends hours ferrying in water to top up L'Espluga's municipal water supplies in a region where the aquifers have been depleted by months of drought. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES