The Mpitsi family home in Ikhutseng in the Northern Cape is the one that their neighbours are talking about. “Come see this house,” urges a local resident, pointing to a squat, nondescript building. “It’s really bad.”
It is. The house is encircled by a sea of overflowing sewage, coated with slimy pea-green algae.
But after years of living like this, Tiny Mpitsi seems resigned to her family’s grim fate. “It’s been like this for so long,” she shrugs with a sad smile. “We went to the [Magareng local] municipality many times but they did nothing so we are used to this situation. I don’t think we will ever get help.”
