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As most of Nelson Mandela Bay’s taps went dry on Friday, the tails snaked around a Malabar home where the owner was providing little relief to parched residents of a natural spring on his premises.
Ebrahim Soomar said that the water came from the land and therefore was not his, so he has chosen to share the scarce resource.
“Water is life, without water we cannot survive and that is why I open my house and my heart because this spring is a gift from God to the people, through me. It is not mine and I have to give and share with my community, ”he said.
Over the past weekend and some days during the week, the northern areas have experienced water outages.
On Friday, the municipality said residents could expect a continuous intermittent water supply throughout the day as the Emerald Hill Reservoir dried up.
Soomar said he wanted to assuage any concerns that he was selling the water to the community and said he could not sell a blessing.
“I don’t want to take advantage of this. I do it because I can. I have to help, otherwise I don’t know what the residents would do ”.
Soomar has been helping the community with water for more than four years and said his latest dream was to install tanks to collect more water and store it to supply communities on an even larger scale.
Weekend Post visited Malabar’s home and some of the residents in the queue described him as a lifeguard.
John Kerspay, from a nearby street in Malabar, said: “This is the second day without water now and we have frequent water outages, but it has never been this bad before and the worst thing is that we did not even get a warning, or the warning comes. after the fact. ”
Regarding Soomar, he said: “I once asked my uncle how I can pay him and I told him that he does not want payment and that he would receive his reward from God.
“That’s the kind of man he is, and God bless him for being a blessing to the community.”
Ravisie Adams also lives nearby and said she was grateful to Soomar that she had no transportation to get to the water tanks and would not have been able to load the containers.
“We thank him and his efforts. There are so many things that go with the power and water cuts, but knowing at least that you will have some water to cook, drink and bathe is a relief, ”said Adams.
