JOHANNESBURG – Every child who wants to use the bathroom, first goes to the JoJo tank to get a bottle of water to flush the toilet.
“Is this our last year?” asks principal Michelle Pellaton-Emerick of the Key School for children with autism in Parktown West.
Pellaton-Emerick: “We are a tiny NPO which relies on private donations to keep the school open. We do not have the money to spend on water and cleaning products.”
Pellaton-Emerick nevertheless had to spend R3 500 on cleaning products to sanitise the school premises. A neighbour of the school, at her own costs, installed pipes to run to the school so that their JoJo tank could be filled from her borehole. Children are asked to bring in drinking water. “Our children all have sensory issues and toilet blockages are very unsafe and unhygienic for them,” she said.
The Key School has been in operation since 1974, providing a much-needed space for children with autism. It’s a happy school, “Let it Go” from Frozen rings out as we enter. But the signs of the water struggle are all over. Toilet doors are marked so that each teacher knows which toilet they are responsible for cleaning and flushing. They clean toilets in between classes.
Every child who wants to use the bathroom, first goes to the JoJo tank to get a bottle of water to flush the toilet. They wash hands, return to the classroom to wash hands again and spray hand sanitiser.
“We can’t use our washing machine to clean towels. We have had to change policy and procedures to keep the young ones safe and healthy. Every classroom has tubs of water, anything bigger poses a risk where children can drown,” she explained.
Video by Kofi Zwana
Pellaton-Emerick is worried that this constant water issue will result in the school having to close its doors. Already they have lost pupils. There has been no water tanker in the area since the crisis started, and it is through the goodwill of neighbours and teachers taking on extra work that the school can continue.
Longtime Parktown West resident Cheryl Stevens says the lack of information and frustration over why this is happening is affecting residents. “We are fed up and we want to know how competent the teams in charge are.” Stevens says a neighbour with a newborn has had to send his wife and young baby away because they have no water.
Melville’s beleaguered residents speak up
Over in Melville, at the community water tank on 1st Avenue, there is a steady stream of residents with their empty buckets and 5-litre containers. Goodwill and camaraderie is palpable as older people are helped to carry their filled containers to their cars. As one bottle overflows, a yelp goes up and there is a rush to close the tap.
Melville residents are no strangers to water outages, they live in the fragile Commando system, and know all about water outages.
Shanaaz Bhayat lives in Melville with her 86-year-old mother. “It’s been hard, my mother has dementia and has a panic attack when she can’t flush the toilet.”
This situation does not inspire confidence, especially as the city leadership of Mayor Morero and his mayoral committee has yet to even publicly address the crisis.
Marcel Pols runs a guesthouse but tells stories of how he has turned many customers away because there is no water for them. But his concern in the high heat of a Joburg summer is his three ducks. “I am really worried about them; their ponds are all brown and dirty because I can’t put clean water in.”
Richard Dauth, who pitched up on his scooter with an empty 5-litre bottle, is very concerned about the health risks posed by this extended outage. “I think the health issue is the real question here. What is happening in our sewage systems with no water to flush it away. I think this is heading towards a cesspool of disease.
“And we don’t hear about the poor and impoverished who have to walk miles to get water. They are unseen in this,” he says.
Janet King, who has lived in Melville for the past 30 years: “I am very lucky, I installed a tank last year during the first round of water disasters. The tank helps enormously, but after three days it starts emptying out. I pay 50c per litre for a bulk water supplier to come and fill it up. And we should get that money back. The city must be made aware that this situation is totally unacceptable.”
Zsofia Barsanyi, who lives at probably the highest point in Melville, is losing money every month because she can’t “in all consciousness” rent out her garden cottage. She has “McGyver-ed” her entire property, from JoJo tanks to rainwater harvesting under every single downpipe, costing thousands in an attempt to manage the constant water outages.
In Emmerentia the Roshnee Group has stepped in and has been supporting the community with water. The Auckland Park Mosque has a borehole and is helping the surrounding communities.
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A Melville/Westdene protest group drew more than 100 people in less than two hours showing how concerned the communities are about the lack of communication coming from the officials.
That has been one of the defining moments of this current outage. Silence from mayor Dada Morero and Johannesburg Water. JW workers went on strike on Monday, not a single water tanker was dispatched to parched residents. The Melville community water tanks ran out at 20:00 on Monday evening.
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Councillors for the affected wards have been left in the dark. A broken pump at the Brixton reservoir, first reported more than a week ago, has not been fixed. JW has told the councillors that parts will arrive within a week. There is still no date for bringing the new Brixton tower and reservoir online.
“This situation does not inspire confidence, especially as the city leadership of Mayor Morero and his mayoral committee has yet to even publicly address the crisis,” councillors Kyle Jacobs, Genevieve Sherman, Hendrik Bodenstein, Zander Shawe, and Nicolene Jonker said.
– Full disclosure, the author is a long-time resident of Melville and has no water.
- This story is produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.
