Meet the women refusing to be armchair critics as Melville taps remain dry

Two of the most vociferous, boisterous and passionate protestors at the Melville water protest last week were Susan Jobson and Wendy Sadie.

Both Melville residents joined Wednesday morning’s protest in Main Street after suffering, along with thousands of other residents in one of Johannesburg’s oldest suburbs, water outages lasting for weeks.

The protest, spontaneously set up almost overnight, drew hundreds of residents. They have vowed to protest daily until water is restored to the suburb that has endured 26 days, by Friday, of dry taps.

While both women have suffered the water outage, their main concern were the people who had to walk kilometres in searing heat to collect water from the one community water point in Melville.

“What worries me most are the people who have no cars, who have to resort to pulling trolleys through the street to get water,” Jobson told Our City News.

Jobson joined the protest because she was slightly frustrated with residents “whining” and not doing anything. “One person took the initiative and got us started. I serve on the steering committee because I’ve done this before. I can help.

“What I want to see coming out of our protests is a change in attitude from City officials. They have to come up with an alternative because this is not a once-off thing. It has happened to us over a long period of time and it’s really important to stress that this is a fight for everyone to have water, it affects everybody,” she said.

As a side note, Jobson noted the support the protestors got from passing cars, taxis and buses. “Some of the bus passengers told us to block off the whole road,” she chuckled.

For Sadie the idea of going to protest was not appealing, but after talking to friends she changed her mind at the last minute. And there she was, dancing, jumping up and down and generally getting everyone in the mood. “I am quite fit, and I like rave music, so I needed to jump up and down. It was nice to use my energy for the protest,” she said.

On a serious note, Sadie is not hopeful for an improvement in the water situation. “It’s too complicated, the reservoir is broken (Hurst Hill 2), how are they going to fix it?” she said.

The Hurst Hill 2 reservoir is currently being refurbished, years after cracks in the structure were discovered.

Work was initially expected to finish in April, but Johannesburg Water has now revised that date to the end of the year without explanation.

Water had started to trickle into some parts of Melville by Friday morning. Other parts remain without water.

This story is produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.