"I am tired of living in human waste." These were the words uttered by an indignant pastor Wilson Hlungwani from Louis Trichardt. He has been living with the sickening smell of faeces for the past two weeks.
The 62-year-old Hlungwani's life has been nothing but a nightmare. A blocked drain is causing sewage to spill into his yard in Kameel street. "I can't even eat, because the smell is so strong," he said. "I really feel neglected and it seems as if the municipality doesn't care about my health."
According to the pastor he has to keep gagging and holding his nose because of the terrible smell. "It's difficult to breathe," he said. As if the human waste smell is not enough, his communal water tap is located right next to the spilling sewerage. "I can't even open my tap, because it is in a pool of faeces," he said.
Pastor Hlungwani said that he had contacted the municipality about the problem on at least three different occasions. The municipality officials apparently promised him that they would fix it, but nothing is happening.
"My health is at risk now. I can't even open the windows because of this terrible smell," he said. "My children cannot play outside because of the human waste and it's not good for their health," he added.
The spokesperson for the Makhado Local Municipality, Mr Louis Bobodi, said that they were aware of the situation and their technical department would address the problem very soon.