Tzaneen has no water, but that won’t stop them from celebrating Ndari Nokeri’s new crown

While celebrations still continue in Tzaneen, Limpopo, days after 23-year-old Ndavi Nokeri was crowned Miss South Africa at the weekend, the struggle for water at the country’s prettiest girl’s home village in Gavaza still rages on.

Nokeri, who has several beauty pageants titles under her belt, grew from the village of Gavaza, near Burgersdorp outside Lenyenye in Tzaneen.

“The writing has always been on the wall for her to attain big things in life after Nokeri first won the Miss Annike Primary School Beauty Pageant,” said Nokeri’s neighbour, Tsakani Malatji.

The women were walking past Nokeri’s family house on a bumpy gravel street, leading to the R36 road between Tzaneen and Hoedspruit.

The Citizen had earlier knocked on the white double-storey house, said to be the queen’s parental home. Only goats and chickens made strolls in the yard. But fortunately, Malatji and two other women came by.

“Are you looking for the queen. She is not here. I think she is still in Gauteng. If you need an interview you must wait until she is back,” said the women.

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One of the women, Khanyisa Nkhwashu, who is also a neighbour, said the village was celebrating Nokeri’s crown.

“But we are worried that when the queen comes back home, she would be forced to push a wheelbarrow and fetch water from a fountain, a river or buy from the well-offs who have boreholes in their yards,” she said.

Nkhwashu, who described Nokeri as a down-to-earth girl, said the new queen “was also a giving person”.

Soon after she recently won the Miss Joburg, she came back home and donated sanitary towels, food parcels school uniforms, sanitisers and blankets to schools, children and impoverished background families.

Malatji was in the company of three other women, pushing wheelbarrows to buy water from another family which has a borehole in the yard.

Mopani district municipality spokesperson Odas Ngobeni said yesterday the municipality was aware of the water challenge faced by the community.

“The area has a challenge of borehole drying up quickly. Our boreholes do not last there because the ground is also waterless. But we are currently at 50% on our quest to supply the community with water through our reticulation pro – gramme,” he said.

“This is the area, whose project to draw water from Tours Dam in Masoma is at an advanced stage. We can now promise that water problems in the village and surroundings will soon be a thing of the past.”

A fortnight ago, residents whose houses are adjacent Tours Dam in Masoma nearly exchanged blows with members of the mayoral committee for the Mopani district municipality and mayor Pule Shayi after they were caught red-handed stealing and vandalising water pipes from a purification plant near the dam.

The water was transported through the pipes from a purification plant to villages around the Bula Mahlo area, including Gavaza, where Nokeri comes from.

– news@citizen.co.za