Nobandla Dyakopu, 60, limps as she carries her five-litre bucket of water.
Her body is sore and creaking. She is never quite sure if she is going to make it all the way on the trip to the river in Mbande village 10km outside Dutywa.
Some days she knows she just does not have it in her and gives it a miss.
Democracy has failed her. She must turn to the past.
In ancient times, a donkey brought fame and honour to its species by carrying Jesus into Jerusalem. Now, the animals are being roped in for water carting amid the failure of the democratic SA state to do its job.
Dyakopu has to buy water from the donkey cart even when she is penniless.
“Even when I don’t have money I have to pledge to pay them when I get my monthly pension grant.”
The Dispatch team found that the provincial water crisis has presented a business opportunity for small traders, who see a turnover of many hundreds of rands a day.
While thousands of Eastern Cape homes struggle for clean water, Ntabankulu’s Luvo Myalwana of Ndakana village has made it his business to provide villagers with water at an urban commercial rate of R1 a litre.
Myalwana sees his trade as helpful to the people who are suffering in the village.
Ndakana is just one village among hundreds in the province where the taps — if ever they had them — have run dry. Many of Myalwana’s customers are elderly people who are no longer able to lug water long distances or even lift a bucket of it to their heads.
He uses donkeys to cart water and, when the demand is intense, he can work from 1am to 9pm — a 20-hour day.
On a busy day his five donkeys, carrying two 25-litre containers, do 12 loads each. He charges R50 a load.
That is a turnover of R3,000.However, from these earnings he must run a generator at the borehole, repairing it when it breaks or is broken, as well as keep the animals in health.
Villager Bongile Diko said the borehole was drilled after the community blockaded roads demanding water.
“Water is a big challenge here, especially for elderly people,” he said.
The Dispatch team visited the village in August and saw some villagers were washing clothes, carrying water on their heads, or using donkeys to cart water.
The nearby village of Mhlonyaneni was waterless until villagers summoned premier Oscar Mabuyane to listen to their grievances.
Nonzuzo Sokotshe said they received water tanks. “He [Mabuyane] ordered the municipality to provide us with water tanks and bring water twice a week,” she said.
It lasted a month.
The Dispatch was shown five water tanks. They were all empty.
Sokotshe said: “They were filled for a month and then the municipality just stopped. “Those who can afford it, buy water from the guy with the donkeys. Some of us walk long distances to fetch water from where animals also drink.”
Healdtown in KwaMaqoma, where Nelson Mandela matriculated at Healdtown Methodist Boarding School, is also being serviced by donkeycart traders, who fill up at a borehole that was paid for by a philanthropic businessman, the late Mthetheleli Ngumbela.
The rate per litre is slightly cheaper here at 75 cents. Villagers pay R90 for a 120-litre drum.
Unemployment is rife in the area, says Ngwevu villager Khanyiso Mjakuca. “We used to be a farming area when we had water.“Now our fields lie fallow because our taps are dry. “We were lucky to have a borehole built by tat’uNgumbela but it is far. It’s hard for old women to reach there.
“Our taps have been dry for 27 years. We always have hope during election season that we will get water, but this has not happened since 1997,” he said.
In Mbande village outside Dutywa, young boys are seen carting water from the river. Villagers say their taps have been dry for more than five years.
The boys did not want to say much, except that this was their task every day after school.
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