WE who live here are quick to screech about everything that is wrong, but travel to Gauteng and we should all be gaily singing along to ‘the green, green grass of home’.
You can take it for granted: The grass is definitely not greener on the other side.
Yes, some Ray Nkonyeni (formerly Hibiscus) areas often have their drinking water supply problems due to burst pipes, etc., but look on the green side of life. We’ve had… RAIN!
Johannesburg usually blossoms at this time of the year with the scent of jasmine and yesterday-today-and-tomorrow in the air. Now it is a barren, brown, dry metropolis of miserable, moody, moaning people.
While we continue to squabble over potholes and such, people in the boomed off suburbs of Gauteng are turning on each other, blowing the whistle on anyone trying to sneak a mere sprinkle of water on their burnt gardens in the dead of night. Many were friends and neighbours. Now they’re sworn enemies… ‘water thieves’!
A prediction by an old friend, the late Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, keeps springing to mind: “The revolution in this country will not come at the barrel of a gun. It will come when you turn on your tap in the morning and nothing comes out.”
That was about 1994 and he probably didn’t actually mean it in the current context, but that (sort of) seems to be happening right now in Gauteng.
People are turning on each other all because of a shortage of water.
The moral of the story? Let’s count our many blessings:
* Our golf courses are lush;
* Golf umbrellas aren’t collecting dust in some cupboard;
* The sea (unlike the Vaal Dam) is full (boat owners don’t have to trek 2km over mud to launch);
* There are even weeds for local cricket hero Pat Symcox to cut at the Hibberdene traffic lights;
* We don’t have to drink neat whisky without ice.
All this really bodes well for us as we approach the festive season.
However, a word of advice to Justin Mackrory, CEO of Ugu South Coast Tourism: Our Blue Flag beaches (which Minister of Tourism, Derek Hanekom launched at Marina Beach last Friday) are really something to crow about.
But tread carefully on the ‘blue’ as we are not a DA-led council.
On the other hand, green is fairly neutral. Based on the reactions of a few upcountry visitors here last week, it’s a winning colour (but without the gold, of course).
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