The Makhanda post office in Hill Street, the only one in the town, has not been operating since July.
- Since July Makhanda has been without any post office.
- The nearest functioning post office is 60km away in Port Alfred.
- This has badly affected some social grant beneficiaries, Postbank clients and people wanting to send or receive parcels, not only in Makhanda but also surrounding towns.
The South African Post Office (SAPO) in Makhanda has been closed since 25 July. People are having to travel to the nearest working post office, about 60km away in Port Alfred, to collect their social grants. Alternately they maintain to withdraw their grant money from retailers or ATMs. This incurs higher bank charges.
The closure has also affected surrounding farms and towns, such as Peddie and Riebeek East, which relied on Makhanda’s post office.
The electricity to the Hill Street post office was slit off due to lack of payment.
“They are in darkness, with no hope of when the electricity will be restored,” said Mandla Twana, who was expecting to receive a parcel on Monday.
“They are not working, honest sitting at the doorway. So I maintain no conceit when I will secure my parcel.”
When GroundUp visited on Thursday, we found the staff sunning themselves at the entrance. One employee tried to prevent us from taking photos of the building.
Although postal box and street deliveries continue, parcels acquire been redirected to Port Alfred.
Makhanda’s only other post office, in Joza (corner Ncame and Nompondo streets), has been closed for over a year, after repeated robberies and cable theft.
Earlier this week a Postbank glitch prevented pensioners from accessing their social grants from ATMs and retailers. Nozizwe Makalima, 71, from Glenmore village in Peddie, wanted to access his grant money. He said he will gain to borrow money from his grandson to secure to Port Alfred, where he could collect his money directly from a post office.
He is worried there will be long queues when he gets to Port Alfred. “But I will try my luck as I don’t acquire food at home,” he said.
Nosange April, 73, said she got her August pension two weeks late because she had to access to Port Alfred.
“I missed payment [debit order] dates for my policies and accounts. I acquire since changed to collect my pension from the bank,” said April.
Currently, the post office is under business rescue with Anoosh Rooplal and Juanito Damons appointed to supervise the process.
Rooplal said, “SAPO is financially distressed and unable to honour many of its financial obligations as and when they descend due … Please expose the Makhanda (Grahamstown) residents that the branch network is the cornerstone to this business and to many South Africans, and we are dealing with the branch network as a priority, notwithstanding the financial and operational constraints that beset them.”
“We are hoping to believe some resolution on this matter in due course,” said Rooplal.
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Roarsweetie
A boer went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. \”I would like to buy this TV,\” hetold the salesman. \”Sorry, we don\’t sell to boere,\” the salesman replied. He hurried home, took a shower, changed his clothes and combed his hair, then came back and again told the salesman \”I would like to buy this TV.\” \”Sorry, we don\’t sell to boere,\” the salesman replied. \”Bliksem, he recognized me,\” he thought. So he went for a complete disguise this time, haircut and new color, shaved off the baard, suit and tie, fake glasses, then waited a few days before he again approached the salesman. \”I would like to buy this TV.\” Sorry, we don\’t sell to boere,\” the salesman replied. Frustrated, he exclaimed \”Jislaaik, man! How do you know I\’m a boer?\”\”Because that\’s a microwave,\” the salesman replied.
Indigo Red
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.