Day 6: Road Trip!

With some ominous black clouds overhead and the grind of Monday morning traffic, we set off on our Jukskei road trip.

Our first stop was Buccleuch. The river was polluted and smelled a bit off, but it was not as bad as what he had previously seen at Alex.

I brought the marantz along and was rewarded with some lovely sounds; birds, running,bubbling water, gushing water, crazy dogs...

The houses near the river had some crazy security, in addition to high walls, electric fences and some savage dogs there was also some heavy, electric "game fencing".

Was crime a problem in the area? Was the river too blame for crime?

We tried to interview a few residents near the river, most had ripped out their intercoms and bells.

Curiouser and curiouser...

We finally got access to house on the banks of the river, an unfinished church stood in the yard.

The couple that lived there admitted that they had been the robbed, during a church service in their yard, they also said that crime was a problem in the area and that the river provided an easy access and escape route for criminals.


Next stop, Waterfall Estate!

Nestled in a pristine valley between Woodmead and Kyalami lies one of the greatest lifestyle estates to enter the South African property market, with 7km of Jukskei flowing through...

Geoff, from Century Developments took us on a tour of the estates. Most of the property on the estate has been snapped up by business tycoons and government officials.



Word on the street is that Mr Paul Mashatile has recently bought property on the estate... but you didn't hear that from me!

There are loads of stories that can be written about Waterfall; the ecology, the estate, the contrast between this estate and Alex... I'm relly spoiled for choice!


Leeukop prison was our last stop for the day. I was amazed with what I saw, it looked like a much cheaper version of Waterfall;
it had houses, a school, little farms and a pretty, clean river running through the property. It did not look like a prison!

There were four prisons on the property, lower security, medium and a "C-MAX" Maximum security facility.

It was initially unsettling to see some of the lower security prisoners freely roaming the grounds. We spoke to prison director, Bonn Muller about the Jukskei.

He had some interesting stories about "foreigners that break in to the prison to steal things", ironic I know. Who in their right minds wuld try and break in to a prison?

Diana, Thabo and Zaheer were all keen on doin Leeukop stories, they accompanied Muller on a tour of the facility.

Day 5: Little Spielbergs

We had a video class with Indra today. We are using HD flipcams - they are small, compact and the picture quality is quite good. The sound however is not as hot.

The 'cams pick up a lot of background noise. In interviews you have to be fairly close to whomever you are interviewing to pick up decent sound.

After familiarising ourselves with the flipcams, we paired up to make our own "mini movies".

Day 4: Walk the talk

After a day of phone calls, brainstorming and discussion, it seems like our group is finally making some progress .
We met with our mentor, Anton to discuss our ideas and pitch some stories.

I am still quite keen on doing a contrast between a family in Alex and one in Dainfern/Sandton.
And after doing some research on Mia's farm.

I found some more info on the massive property development that will be built on the Mia's land. It is called Waterfall, and it will have housing esates, retirement village, schools, shopping centres... the plans look quite impressive. I definitely have to go there and see what the deal is.

Zaheer is still keen on his canals (and still paranoid about e-coli), Xola is looking at several environmental issues, Diana wants to follow a vagrant living off the river and Thabo wants to do his story on religious groups that use the river for baptisms and rituals.

Our ideas were well received, we were just concerned about them overlapping with those of the other groups.

I thought that Thabo's story was the most interesting, I would love to see the pictures and video of rituals in the river. I think that if it is done right, it can be a really awesome story.

Anton gave us a wicked idea- walking the Jukskei and filming our experiences, who we meet and what we see along the way. It got a mixed reaction from the group, some of us were quite keen on the idea, others were a bit dubious....

Nevertheless, we decided by a 4-1 majority that we would do it!

The supergroup meeting later with the others was painful, almost every one of our stories was snapped up by the other groups. The history group tried to take Waterfall, but I dug my heels in and managed to keep it :)

I am really excited about the project, but at the same time I can't help but feel a little bit overwhelmed, this project is going to be a humangous load of work...

Seriously though, I'm a little bit nervous. There is a mammoth amount of work to do in just two weeks.

Day 2 and 3: cabin fever

Day 2

We started blogging on our Jukskei project and the four groups were tasked with critiquing various websites.

Looking at the different sites was interesting, we got a lot of ideas on what would work for our Jukskei site and whatshould be avoided.

The Andaman Rising website was hands-down the favourite. Everyone was impressed.

The site was focused on a community in Andaman, southern Thailand that was hit by the Asian Tsunami of 2004.

The home page was stunning- a collage of beautiful pictures greeted visitors. Hovering your mouse cursor over a picture opened a little video/sound clip on the story. Clicking on the picture would reveal more on that particular story.

Scott, from the Christian Science Monitor chatted to us about multimedia sites.

The 4 groups later touched base.

My group includes Diana, Zaheer, Xola and Thabo. Our topic is the people that live off the river.

The other topics include; the people that live by the river, the history and future of the river and the enviromental issues concerning the river.

Day 3

"The Jukskei is not a river...it's more like a ditch or a donga". (Clive Chipkin)

We all arrived, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited about finally discovering where the Jukskei began and ended, it's origins, geographical stats and any other facts that could aid our projects.

Clive Chipkin (historian/geographer) kicked off our marathon of lectures, with his talk on the history of Johannesburg.

Although he was armed with colourful hand-drawn khoki maps and some cool anecdotes, Mr Chipkin admitted that the Jukskei didn't really excite him. He proceeded to give us the low-down on the history and geography of Jo'burg , just minus that of the Jukskei...

Dr Deanne Drake, from APES (Animal, Plant and Enviromental Studies) discussed the quality of water in South Africa.

The good news for us, is that Jo'burg's drinking water is of a pretty high quality. Drake said that it was unecessary for us to constantly buy bottled water, when a class of our own council juice would easily suffice.

People in Pretoria shouldn't give up on their Valpre or Bonaqua just yet, their water is not quite on par with ours. Their water source is the Hartbeespoort Dam, our beloved Jukskei river flows into the dam.

Seeing the graphs on the bacteria found at various points of the Jukskei was frightening. The Zoo Lake, linked to the Jukskei is e.coli- infested. The fountain in the centre of the lake is gushing out e.coli germs- not a pretty picture for the couples taking a romantic boat ride on the lake, through the fountain spray.

The group that is tackling enviromental affairs received a wealth of information and some interesting story ideas.

The wetlands project at the Zoo piqued my interest...it would have been a great topic to do, if I was in the enviromental group.

Paula Frey from the International Press Service (IPS) was last on the bill. She advised us on how best to tackle our stories, not to get too bogged down in the scientific facts, to give the story a "human face" and to write in english (no jargon!).

After back-to-back lectures, the groups met to brainstorm ideas for stories.

I am still keen on doing a contrast between a family in Alex and another in Dainfern/Sandton, my second story will be on the Waterfall development on Mia's farm.

Day 1

I could smell the Jukskei river, before I actually saw it.

It had a pungent, rotten fish smell, and the closer I got, the stronger it became. It was pretty nasty.

The visual assault was equally disturbing - dead rats, soiled sanitary pads, discarded clothes and waste floated past. The water was a murky grey.

Despite this, Zaheer decided to stick his hands into the water- not his smartest move.

Luckily our guide Kim Kaiser, from Wet Africa, had disinfectant wipes handy. She told us about the toxicity of the water and the infections that people exposed to it can pick up, also about related-illnesses that have killed members of the community.

This portion of the river is absolutely vile, I will hopefully get pics the next time I go. I don't think that anyone reading this will believe how filthy that river is, unless they can actually see it.

What is also quite shocking, is that a community in Alexandra township have built make-shift shacks on the banks of the river. Hundreds (thousands?) of shacks have literally been built on top of one-another, with any materials that could be found.

The community on the banks of the Jukskei do not have electricity, there are porta-loos and taps available in some parts, but this means that there is one tap and one toilet to share between the inhabitants of 40-50 shacks. There is limited access to the porta-loos, people without access usually defecate in bags and throw them into the river.

Kim told us that officially there are three hundred thousand people living in Alex, but that the number is actually closer to one million.

Many people use the water from the Jukskei for bathing or for washing their clothes. We were told that children from the community often play in the water.

Is the community aware of the dangers? Or is it part and parcel of their existance on the banks of the Jukskei?

With cholora outbreaks, flash floods, hygeine and the dangers posed to the commmunity, there are so many stories that can be told.

I am thinking of doing a story about the contrast between this community in Alex and a community in the wealthier suburbs of Dainfern or Sandton, who live off the river.

There is talk of an upmarket housing estate, that will be built in Dainfern. The people that live here will have exclusive access to the 7km of Jukskei. It will be cleaned up, with promises of hiking trails, bike routes and picnic areas- a stark contrast to what was seen in Alex.

Definitely a story there.



A crazy fact about the river: it is north-flowing but it rises in southern Jo'burg under Ellis Park. That's right under Ellis Park.