Fence erected for peace at last
Residents in Robyn Park have put words into action after erecting a fence to control access to Jukskei River.
Andre de Bruyn was extremely frustrated when he contacted Fourways Review in September last year. He was distressed about being unable to sleep due to the presence of people from various churches and traditional healers who gather at the Jukskei River, in Robyn Park, to perform rituals every weekend.
He said the church members came travelling in four to six taxis at around 04:00. Upon arrival, they started beating drums while singing and then the loud screaming would start.
“I do not have an issue with them practising their beliefs but why that early in the morning? What about the noise? What about the mess they always leave behind because there is no toilet system? There are no changing facilities so they just come there and do their thing and change from their wet clothes to dry ones in the open – that is not nice at all.”
De Bruyn complained to JMPD but that did not help him. He accused the church members and traditional healers of leaving dead chickens, feathers, burnt candles and human waste at the river banks of the park.
This caused a lot of extra cleaning-up work for Murray van Zyl and his team of volunteers – and they got fed up. He spoke to the church pastors and traditional healers about the mess they leave behind, however, his complaints seemingly fell on deaf ears.
“Many of the traditional healers agreed that it was disgusting. But you have to remember that these people are not local so they don’t care about what the place looks like when they leave. Then they come back the next week and as if by magic, it’s clean again because my staff clean there.”
Gogo Malefu Ranjana, a traditional healer, said at the time, that she always cleans after herself, but she understands why some of the healers do not. She said it was part of the rituals’ waiting period as cleaning up might interrupt its effectiveness.
The community raised funds to erect a fence around the park to control access to the river. The donations were handled by Van Zyl and it proved to be a successful solution. He said it cost the community about R60 000 to erect the 110m fence.
“I am devastated that we had to go to this length to secure the park and try to restore what was once a beautiful park. We tried to engage with all these worshipers, healers, church members and so on but none of them adhered to any of the rules and regulations or tried to reduce the numbers over the weekend. None of them cleaned after themselves.
“The discussions went in one ear and out the other ear. Sadly, the rule of law in the country has come to the point where communities have to gate parks because law enforcement could not be bothered.”
He said they have little funds from the amount they have raised which will be used to maintain the park.
“We realised that some panels will be vandalised or broken because of the lack of the rule of law but we will deal with that. We have security provided by armed security at their own cost and we will inspect the fence now and then throughout the day.”
Ward 106 councillor Chris Santana has had a hand in escalating Van Zyl’s idea of erecting the fence to the relevant authority in an email seen by Fourways Review.
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