Bridge Challenge

Christinah Mogobye

Sefikile village

Moses Kotane Local Municipality

28 February 2021

I started my schooling 30 years ago, we had been having problems with our bridge and even now we are still experiencing it. There are two rivers and two bridges, the main bridge that separates two sections is a problem. It overflows quickly because it was not well built and when it overflows learners and attend can’t make it to school.

This is a serious problem because it was said that it was sponsored by our local mine but it turned out that it was false information. As a community worker, it got me worried because I am fearing for the lives of my community members. On the 8th of February 2021, it was overflowing unexpectedly and some people were taking chances of crossing over, I have seen many lives being taken by such incident but not in my own village but it really got me worried.

When I was knocking off that day I didn’t want to take chances and fortunate enough I had some few bucks in my pocket, so I had to catch a taxi to Northam and when I got to Northam I had to take another taxi to come here and because it used the Swartklip route as the road and the bridge was overflowing, they charged us more so this problem is affecting us negatively, we lose money and we might also lose our lives in the process. The roads were fixed except the ones that go through the side of the bridge so that road was damaged, even if the bridge was not overflowing, it would have still cost us because the taxi drivers were also complaining about the condition of the road. I wish these problems could be attended to as a matter of urgency.