Here’s Looking at You, Joost
It’s something for them to look forward to.”
The pre-exam breakfasts and lunches are a refuge for the pupils in the gang-ridden area. According to Crime Stats SA, Delft has the ninth-highest crime rate in the Western Cape, with 9 057 reported crimes.
Sascha-Lee Schouw, 18, has witnessed a shooting and has been robbed while on the way to school.
Schouw said he was grateful he didn’t have to write his exams while hungry. “You don’t concentrate. Your mind is somewhere else and not on what you should be doing.
“Being here has been a helpful experience for me because there isn’t always time for breakfast, and sometimes there isn’t [food]. So I started coming here.
I just want them to relax and not have to worry about eating
JOHANNESBURG resident Richard Holden pays his water bill with a smile.
That’s because the 55-yearold engineer from Bellevue East, Johannesburg, is big on saving water — and his efforts result in a water bill of between R56 and R90 a month.
He uses mainly grey water for his evergreen garden, and filtered rain water for consumption.
And he has a dry toilet system that doesn’t use a drop of water.
While some people enjoy wine tasting, Holden prefers comparisons in taste between rain water, tap water and that out of Upington Canal in the Northern Cape instead.
“The majority of people who have come to our watertasting events prefer water from the canal. It contains minerals and has no salt”, said Holden, an engineer for the state-owned TransCaledon Tunnel Authority.
Its mission is to fund and develop bulk raw water infrastructure in a sustainable manner that is cost-effective.
Holden is part of a team that travels around South Africa preaching and implementing ways to save water.
And for years, he has practised what he preaches around his 400m² home.
He has invested in a water sprinkler system that draws used dishwater, laundry water and bath water for BEHOLDEN TO NONE: Richard Holden stands next to a water tank for capturing rain water at home his garden.
He has spent only R2 500 on his complex plumbing system, which includes three water tanks to collect rain water on his property.
When some Johannesburg suburbs had water shortages recently, Holden was able to help his neighbours with buckets of rain water from his tanks, which each hold up to 1 000 litres.
“I learnt from the drought of 1995 that I needed to cut my water consumption. Right now, the only period when I use municipal water is during winter, when the rain is scarce.”
For the rest of the year he relies on the rain and recycled water.
His dry toilet system is particularly useful when taps run dry.
This invention, he said, was the outcome of a challenge from a former colleague after their team rolled out a batch of dry toilets at homes in the arid Namaqualand.
“I remember the colleague saying we put proper technology in other people’s houses yet we have never tested the technology to see if it really works in our own homes,” he said.
Holden admitted that he has a traditional loo in his home too, but said the dry toilet came in handy when the taps ran dry.
But he warned: “It is quite convenient in the rural areas or in stand-alone houses. But you cannot use the dry toilet in a complex or flat.”