Grocott's Mail
  • NEWS
    • Courts & Crime
    • Features
    • Politics
    • People
    • Health & Well-being
  • SPORT
    • News
    • Results
    • Sports Diary
    • Club Contacts
    • Columns
    • Sport Galleries
    • Sport Videos
  • OPINION
    • Election Connection
    • Makana Voices
    • Deur ‘n Gekleurde Bril
    • Newtown… Old Eyes
    • Incisive View
    • Your Say
  • ARTSLIFE
    • Cue
    • Makana Sharp!
    • Visual Art
    • Literature
    • Food & Fun
    • Festivals
    • Community Arts
    • Going Places
  • OUR TOWN
    • What’s on
    • Spiritual
    • Emergency & Well-being
    • Safety
    • Civic
    • Municipality
    • Weather
    • Properties
      • Grahamstown Properties
    • Your Town, Our Town
  • OUTSIDE
    • Enviro News
    • Gardening
    • Farming
    • Science
    • Conservation
    • Motoring
    • Pets/Animals
  • ECONOMIX
    • Business News
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Personal Finance
  • EDUCATION
    • Education NEWS
    • Education OUR TOWN
    • Education INFO
  • Covid-19
  • EDITORIAL
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending
  • Chess tournament leaves participants feeling grandiose
  • GM Direct publishing break
  • “Makhanda is in shambles,” says Ward Four resident
  • GADRA and Mobile Science Lab launch new science project
  • Ward Two residents buy own floodlights to combat cable theft
  • A town without a playground: where do the children play?
  • Women, Politics, Power, Patriachy: A feminist lens
  • Makhanda’s Links Royal House Gaokx’aob (Chief) has died
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Grocott's Mail
  • NEWS
    • Courts & Crime
    • Features
    • Politics
    • People
    • Health & Well-being
  • SPORT
    • News
    • Results
    • Sports Diary
    • Club Contacts
    • Columns
    • Sport Galleries
    • Sport Videos
  • OPINION
    • Election Connection
    • Makana Voices
    • Deur ‘n Gekleurde Bril
    • Newtown… Old Eyes
    • Incisive View
    • Your Say
  • ARTSLIFE
    • Cue
    • Makana Sharp!
    • Visual Art
    • Literature
    • Food & Fun
    • Festivals
    • Community Arts
    • Going Places
  • OUR TOWN
    • What’s on
    • Spiritual
    • Emergency & Well-being
    • Safety
    • Civic
    • Municipality
    • Weather
    • Properties
      • Grahamstown Properties
    • Your Town, Our Town
  • OUTSIDE
    • Enviro News
    • Gardening
    • Farming
    • Science
    • Conservation
    • Motoring
    • Pets/Animals
  • ECONOMIX
    • Business News
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Personal Finance
  • EDUCATION
    • Education NEWS
    • Education OUR TOWN
    • Education INFO
  • Covid-19
  • EDITORIAL
Grocott's Mail
You are at:Home»NEWS»Health & Well-being»A taste of Hell in what should be Paradise
Health & Well-being

A taste of Hell in what should be Paradise

Sue MaclennanBy Sue MaclennanNovember 22, 2018No Comments5 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Nomaindia Elsie Lukhwe will be 90 in two years. If she needs the toilet, someone has to carry her across this pool of sewage. Photo: Sue Maclennan

On 22 October, a group of women from Extension 5 and Extension 6 demanded to see the editor. The women, in their 60s, 70s and 80s, were at their wit’s end. After months of phone calls and visits to the municipality, they said, they were still living in unbearable conditions, surrounded by raw sewage.

Grocott’s Mail was later that day taken on a tour of homes where the owners – mostly retired – continue to do their best to live the lives they’ve earned after dedicating their working years to the community as teachers, nurses and civil servants.

It was hot and as the windows were rolled down, the stench was overwhelming. Rivers of raw sewage poured along open stormwater drains past well kept houses, flotillas of plastic bobbing their way along the stream, until they reached an obstacle and clumped into a nest of faeces, toilet paper and condoms. Well established stepping stones and bridges are a sign of how long proud householders have had to block their noses and bear it.

A toddler’s toy motorbike stands ready and waiting close to pools of toxic sewage.

Sometimes if the wind is blowing in the right direction and you forget where you are, your heart can lift a bit when you see puddles in the road. Until you remember it hasn’t rained in weeks. They’re not the kind of puddle you’d want your child to splash through in their gumboots and once you focus, you soon register the white flecks of toilet paper from an overflowing sewer. And there are plenty of children in the streets.

Piles of rubbish blown in the wind, or swept along by the toxic streams, pile up at random points, forming grotesque temporary sculptures.

Mxolisi Mankayi, who has lived in Extension 6 for 20 years, says it’s never been so bad. He has a young child who’s soon going to be a toddler needing a place to run around. There’s a swathe of soft green grass easily accessible across the fence.

It’s not your eyes or a badly focused camera that makes the grass look fuzzy. As you get closer, you recognise the familiar haze of toilet paper covering grass with its translucent film.

Mankayi grows vegetable in his yard to sustain himself and his family. He doesn’t look forward to the rains because that’s when the sewers flood and overflow into his house and yard, coating the spinach and green beans in that same film.

Nomaindia Elsie Lukwe was born on 1 March 1930. In two years she’ll be 90. She lives with her family in a small but neat and well cared for house.

But when she needs the toilet, which is outside, someone has to carry her across an ankle-deep pool of sewage that’s been there so long it’s green with algae.

The rooms of other family members are immaculate, tidy, with fresh linen on the beds. Then you look down and see the bed is on bricks because a 10cm-deep moat of sewage surrounds it.

Notyolo Bungane has worked hard to create a homestay B&B enjoyed by many out-of-town businesspeople. But her high standards are trashed by the invasive stench of sewage from the stormwater drain outside.

Notyolo Bungane owns a B&B in Extension 5 that in 2006 was rated three-star and was a semifinalist in a national competition. Bungane has seven rooms to let. Opposite the Indoor Sport Centre, it’s ideal for managers on two-day visits to local branches and franchises. And that’s who Esihle B&B has no trouble attracting.

It’s not surprising: The premises are neat and clean, polished floors and gleaming windows softened by careful décor and well maintained plants.

When you’re there, it’s impossible to put together what you see with what you smell. Raw sewage pours along the open stormwater drain alongside the houses in the area, and bursts out of an inspection cover just outside her back gate.

Even with the best mental strength, you can’t escape the sickening stench. It surrounds and fills the living spaces of people who are asking no favours because they are supporting themselves and maintaining their own homes.

All the home-owners Grocott’s Mail spoke to – we stopped when we reached 11, with many more wanting to tell their stories – say they have made repeated phone calls and visits to the municipality to have the problem solved.

Grocott’s Mail called the residents this week, exactly a month later, to ask if any of the problems had been resolved. They were adamant they hadn’t. “Things are just the same,” said Pam Sandi, who led the tour. It’s no wonder these residents are in turns angry, despairing and disgusted.

Not doing work

The political response to the situation, as has been the trend in Council in recent weeks, was to put the blame squarely on municipal staff.

As the temperature on Monday 29 October soared towards 40C, the Speaker opened a special council meeting by saying, “Our water problems are being solved but sewage is now the problem.”

Yandiswa Vara had no hesitation in blaming the blockages and resulting overflowing sewers in areas such as Extension 5 and Extension 6 on municipal staff. “Blockages are the result of our workers not doing their work,” Vara said. “The problem starts when employees say they are going to service drains but they don’t do that.”

At the same meeting, the Mayor laid the blame for the Extension 6 sewage leaks squarely at residents’ doors.

“In Extension 6 they flushed their toilets before the [sewer]project was complete,” said Mayor Nomhle Gaga. “Now [as a result]that whole project must start afresh – and that needs funding and a  honeysucker.”

NOW TAKE THE FULL TOUR

5a IMG_2922_WEB
5a IMG_2922_WEB
Nomaindia Elsie Lukhwe will be 90 in two years. If she needs the toilet, someone has to carry her across this pool of sewage.
5 IMG_2921_WEB
5 IMG_2921_WEB
1_IMG_2902_1_Mavis Kondile_WEB
1_IMG_2902_1_Mavis Kondile_WEB
Mavis Kondile is surrounded by pools of raw sewage.
1a_IMG_2905_WEB
1a_IMG_2905_WEB
The source of raw sewage overflows at Mavis Kondile’s and Mxolisi Mankayi’s homes is this sewer junction, which overflows all the time, except when there are water outages.
1b. IMG_2912_WEB
1b. IMG_2912_WEB
The source of raw sewage overflows at Mavis Kondile’s and Mxolisi Mankayi’s homes is this sewer junction, which overflows all the time, except when there are water outages.
2_IMG_2908_2_WEB
2_IMG_2908_2_WEB
Thembisa Marawu (with Amyoli, 6 months), Patricia Radu (with Siviwe, 14 months), Sheila Ndarana and Pamela Sandi in front of the house of 80-year-old Lindiwe Prins, whose relatives took her to Port Elizabeth because of the sewage surrounding her home.
2a_IMG_2909_WEB
2a_IMG_2909_WEB
Lindiwe Prins has to cross a stream of sewage to get to her home.
3. IMG_2914_WEB
3. IMG_2914_WEB
Mxolisi Mankayi is surrounded by deep pools of sewage at his home, close to the new sewer junction.
3a. IMG_2915_WEB
3a. IMG_2915_WEB
Mxolisi Mankayi is surrounded by deep pools of sewage at his home, close to the new sewer junction.
3b IMG_2917_WEB
3b IMG_2917_WEB
These Extension 6 streets boast well maintained homes and it looks like a nice place to live – until you’re hit by the stench of raw sewage.
4. IMG_2919_4_Nomsa Meintjies_WEB
4. IMG_2919_4_Nomsa Meintjies_WEB
Nomsa Meintjies, 72, has to put up with raw sewage pooled outside her home.
5 IMG_2921_WEB
5 IMG_2921_WEB
Nomaindia Elsie Lukhwe will be 90 in two years. If she needs the toilet, someone has to carry her across this pool of sewage.
5a IMG_2922_WEB
5a IMG_2922_WEB
Nomaindia Elsie Lukhwe will be 90 in two years. If she needs the toilet, someone has to carry her across this pool of sewage.
5b IMG_2924_WEB
5b IMG_2924_WEB
A toddler’s toy motorbike stands ready and waiting close to pools of toxic sewage.
5b IMG_2926_WEB
5b IMG_2926_WEB
Clean, fresh linen on beds surrounded by a moat of sewage.
5d IMG_2927_WEB
5d IMG_2927_WEB
Clean, fresh linen on beds surrounded by a moat of sewage.
5e IMG_2928_WEB
5e IMG_2928_WEB
Friends and neighbours gathered at Lukhwe’s house.
6 IMG_2931_6_Nombulelo Gaika_WEB
6 IMG_2931_6_Nombulelo Gaika_WEB
A blocked drain at Nombulelo Gaika’s house.
6a IMG_2932_WEB
6a IMG_2932_WEB
Opposite, a family is separated from the road by a stream of sewage.
7 IMG_2934_7_Landiwe Bonani_WEB
7 IMG_2934_7_Landiwe Bonani_WEB
Landiwe Bonani’s back yard is flooded.
8 IMG_2936_8_Nothini and Nomsa Sandi_WEB
8 IMG_2936_8_Nothini and Nomsa Sandi_WEB
Nothini and Nomsa Sandi have built makeshift stepping stones and bridges across the sewage, to access the street.
10 IMG_2941_10_Sibongile Makina and Ross_WEB
10 IMG_2941_10_Sibongile Makina and Ross_WEB
Sibongile Maku surveys an area built up at the back of the house so the residents don’t have to step across raw sewage every time they walk out the back door. Ross the dog rests in the shade.
11 IMG_2945_WEB
11 IMG_2945_WEB
Raw sewage and rubbish pour along the stormwater drain opposite the Indoor Sport Centre, outside the back gate of the Esihle B&B – once rated three-star, and a semifinalist in a national competition.
11a IMG_2948_WEB
11a IMG_2948_WEB
Raw sewage and rubbish pour along the stormwater drain opposite the Indoor Sport Centre, outside the back gate of the Esihle B&B – once rated three-star, and a semifinalist in a national competition.
11c IMG_2950_11_Notyolo Bungane_WEB
11c IMG_2950_11_Notyolo Bungane_WEB
Notyolo Bungane has worked hard to create a homestay B&B enjoyed by many out-of-town businesspeople. But her high standards are trashed by the invasive stench of sewage from the stormwater drain outside.
Previous ArticleElectoral Commission welcomes ruling by the Constitutional Court
Next Article First time title for Graeme
Sue Maclennan
  • Twitter

Local journalism

Comments are closed.

Tweets by Grocotts
Newsletter



Listen

The Rhodes University Community Engagement Division has launched Engagement in Action, a new podcast which aims to bring to life some of the many ways in which the University interacts with communities around it. Check it out below.

Humans of Makhanda

Humans of Makhanda

Weather    |     About     |     Advertise     |     Subscribe     |     Contact     |     Support Grocott’s Mail

© 2023 Maintained by School of Journalism & Media Studies.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.