Ama to Zuma

At last - Zuma's reign nearing it's end. It took the populace twenty two years to realize that a country can not be ruled by a nincompoop. Political jargon and renaming of streets, towns and cities does very little in providing work, education, medical services and the like which are the things that actually matter.

A city called by any other name will soon smell of excrement if the sewers are left to their own device, if garbage collection is done at the whim of the Municipal workers Unions and if streets are used as urinals as per the squatter syndrome. If the urge strikes, squat and void the old bladder and bowels.

I the old days, when people still had some values, they would at least look for a bush to hide behind, not anymore. I saw a woman taking a crap on the sidewalk, in front of everybody and just walking off as if nothing has happened. A taxi pulled over in front of me and five or six of the occupants, male and female just did their thing - no problem.

The country is in the process of being turned into a public toilet, imagine if 55 million people decide that it is OK to shit on the sidewalks - we will save on fuel as everybody will be able to slide on a slick layer of brown stuff to work and back home - I am told you get used to the odour.

Most bothering is of course not the pong but the diseases associated with human faeces. Exposure will lead to more frequent squatting with less viscous material emerging from the posterior valve.

More noisy one would imagine but definitely of lower viscosity.

This will eventually lead to more patients for the state hospitals, definitely a marked increase expected from slip-and-fall incidents and maybe some cholera, hepatitis and all the other shit-borne diseases for the aspirant doctors to hone their skills on. (at least our medical fraternity will be the best on the planet as far as bone-setting and cholera treatment regimes are concerned. After all, practice makes perfect.

International tourists will love the atmosphere, especially when they are having prawns at some sidewalk Restaurant.  I can Imagine a glass of "Kanonkop" Cab/Sauv 2004 with the undertones of gut grease to make the wine more interesting. I can imagine some wine fundi proclaiming the virtues of said wine with the background "nose" being of a shitty nature instead of the undertone of blackberries or some other fruit.

Get rid of this guy, Mr. Z. He is turning our country into a cesspool.

I drive home via Baviaanspoort road, the North-Eastern side of Pretoria. As you near the Moreletta River, the smell of raw sewage hits you between the eyes.  It oozes from a blocked sewer 24/7. This has been the case now for the past four years or so. It gets better during the rainy season when all the brown stuff is washed downstream to end up in the Roodeplaat dam where water is sourced for the entire Nokeng, Kameeldrift, Kameelfontein and surrounding areas. I am fortunate to have a borehole on my property with clean, sweet water. I just pray that the contamination will be stopped before our groundwater becomes fouled - this is a real threat.

As youngsters we used to fish in the Roodeplaat dam and we were able to eat our catch afterwards, without fear of becoming ill.

Should one now dare to stand barefoot in the shallows or ski, even with full wetsuit protection, one would be required to enter a decontamination booth afterwards.

A once pristine water source is now a cesspool - easily recognised by the logarithmic increase of algae growth. Where the Molotto river enters the dam, dead fish can often be observed.

At the Eastern side of the dam, where people purchased waterfront property at highly elevated prices, built waterside lapas and entertainment areas, all that are left now are the structures, the people are out of sight, mostly indoors, trying to elude the malodorous fumes emanating from the dam and hiding themselves from criminal activity which has become rife in this area.

If you travel further to the East, on the Cullinan road, new housing developments with hundreds, no thousands of new houses can be observed.

Seriously perturbing is the fact that all these households will be adding their gastric discharge into a system that is already bursting at the seams and that for the last ten years or so has been left to its own devices. Fortunately some light in the form of the newly elected DA is visible on the horizon.

Let us make a small prayer that they will be able to stem the looming shitstorm before it hits our freshwater sources and turns them into huge sewage farms.