Andries Langa, the live-in cleaner and gardener of the St George Hellenic Orthodox Church in Brakpan, has spent every Sunday of the last month toiling to clean up the Greek section of the Brakpan Cemetery.

The cemetery has been an eyesore for a long time, with maintenance occurring sporadically.

The cemetery has remainedin a jungle-like state most of the time. Criminals hide in the overgrown cemetery after burglaries, homeless people sometimes sleep on the graves, and the few amenities on the property have been stripped bare of any valuable hardware or building materials.

As reported by the Brakpan Herald, things are looking up: maintenance work has started following the appointment of contractors, who have already cleared the paved entrance.

Andries usually goes to the cemetery to clean about once a month, but the condition of the cemetery at the start of the year was so poor that it required more frequent, intensive work to get the overgrowth under control.

The church leaders collected donations to pay the extra labour, raising over R5 000, with more donations still coming in. Julie Christou from the church spoke about how wonderful it is that the church community could raise so much in such a short time.

“And the money is still coming in, isn’t that wonderful?” she said.

Voulla Psarianos, also from the church, lamented that Brakpan used to be known for its beautiful gardens.

“It can be again; it was built to be a garden city. If it’s just maintained, it can be beautiful again,” she said.

Andries shared that he is happy to help with the cemetery cleanup.

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“I’m so happy to help the ladies do the job. It’s disgusting on that side; it doesn’t look nice. Thank you to the community for their help and for giving me money so I can feed my children.

“These ladies look after me. I’ve worked here for 15 years and never had a problem. Thank you so much, all the ladies.”

Julie added that she recently went to the cemetery with Katina Papageorgiou and Andries.

“After driving through what resembles a jungle, we reached a clearing which is the Greek Section. Andries has been going regularly, and it really looks much better, although a lot still needs to be done. There is a lot of rubble and tree cuttings that need to be removed, but he told us he has someone who will go and remove them once he is done.

“So we are getting there, it’s just a concern to actually drive through because of the thick overgrowth from the entrance to the clearing of our section. Once again, thank you to all the kind people who have contributed to this project,” she said.