Walking to school through faeces

Residents suffer Gibeon’s sewerage mess “You can’t open your front door because of the mess outside.” Katrina Holstead says she has had to endure a terrible stench and an eyesore in her yard for the past few years. She and other residents of Gibeon in the Hardap region say they continue to suffer the consequences of the village’s inadequate sewerage infrastructure.

The village council installed a N$20-million vacuum sewerage system in 2011, which, however, started malfunctioning and was replaced with a drainage system last year. Holstead says about a month ago, the sewerage system overflowed, with faeces spilling into residents’ yards and the streets, leaving the area in front of the Stanislaus Catholic parish inaccessible. “We were told there was a breakdown at the pump station, but the sewage has been overflowing for years.