When water’s a dirty business
Shadile Masulu explains why she has to drink the same water that others use to bathe and do laundry in.
|||Johannesburg - For as long as Shadile Masulu, 26, can remember, the nearby stream where animals drink and people bathe and do their laundry has been where she gets her drinking water.
The water is muddied and dirty. Animals walk into the stream to quench their thirst.
People bring their dirty clothes and wash them. Others go to the stream, get into it and have a bath.
For Masulu and other people in the neighbourhood, that is the only water that they can get. They draw it, take it home and wait for the dirt to sink to the bottom then drink it or cook with it.
Cape Times sister paper The Star visited Masulu in Louieville as she made her way to the stream to have a bath.
She only had a kanga wrapped around her body and carried a washcloth and soap in her hand.
At the stream, she got into the water and had a bath, leaving soap suds around her.
Just before Masulu had her bath, two women had gone down to the same spot with two containers to draw water which they would later drink and use to cook.
The last time Masulu had clean water was three weeks ago when she visited relatives in the nearby township of Matsulu.
“I always tell myself that this is not right, to bathe and drink from the same water, but what can I do? Sometimes I get to the stream to find that someone is having a bath.
“I will just take my container, draw the water and go home. Most of the children here have bilharzia.”
According to the local chief, Ntikhondele Dlamini, the area has had a water crisis for years. Dlamini said as it is, Lily Mine is the one that supplies his household with water, while the rest of the people have to get water from the stream.
Dlamini said it was disheartening that they have to struggle so much to get water, whereas the government should be providing it.
“The government should be helping us, it is not the responsibility of the mine to ensure that people here have water. I have been speaking to the government about the water situation and last year a delegate from the government came here.
“We had three meetings and they said they would dig a borehole for the community to get water, saying 2015 was the year of water. But nothing has happened and we are now tired. When they wanted votes they came again,” Dlamini said.
Some of the residents at the mine have put a pipe in the stream, which takes the water directly to their homes.
This cuts the time going up and down with heavy containers filled with water.
The water that comes out of the pipe is brown.
They use detergent to clean it, but if they don’t have detergent, they just drink and cook with the water.
Simon Mohlabane works at Lily Mine and the mine always has a container of clean water for the miners to drink from.
Each day when he returns from work, Mohlabane fills a five-litre container with clean water to drink at home.
He uses the dirty water from the stream to cook and wash. “This water is dirty and it is not right that I cook with it, but what can I do? There’s no other way,” he said.
Another miner, Sibusiso Nkosi, 31, used to boil the water when it came out of the pipe as a way of cleaning it.
When he has detergent, he pours some in it, but doesn’t measure the amount he uses. “I have been doing this since 2008 and I’m used to the taste of Jik in my water,” he said.
Louieville has two water recycling plants which purify the water from the streams before supplying it to the schools and a clinic.
Residents who want clean water can also go there and ask for it.
But many of them live far away and need a car to get there, so they end up having to drink the dirty water from the streams.
Further up the mountains on the other side of Lily Mine, a blue water tank stands empty. An old woman whose house is next to it said it has been a long time since they had water in the tank.
Their local councillor doesn’t live in the area, she said.
“She never comes here. I won’t vote this year because voting does not help me,” she said.
Lily Mine spokesperson Coetzee Zietsman said they had been in consultation with the municipality about the water many times. He said they also don’t have clean water at the mine.
“We have asked the municipality to draw the water from the mine and then take it to the water treatment plants to be purified to supply the community.
“The mine offered to build a pipe that will take the water there to help alleviate the problem, but the municipality has not taken us up on the offer,” Zietsman said.
Cyril Repinga, spokesperson for Nkomazi Municipality, said they are aware that people drink dirty water from the stream.
“They installed two water treatment plants about four years ago, the water was enough for everyone, but problems started when people flocked to the area to look for jobs at the mine.”
CAPE TIMES