I HAVE been a regular visitor to your charming town for the past eight years.
Since the first time I went along the Main Street, it evoked a childhood memory of the description at the back of Ceres juices I used to drink, growing up in Europe. Paarl has that same magic of the Ceres Valley description, magical, lost in time, idyllic to a foreigner like myself who only visits.
For a number of years also, I have been a regular swimmer at the Faure Street Municipal Swimming Pool which is incredibly cheap and was kept immaculately clean.
This latest visit like on all the previous Spring or Summer visits, I went to swim there and was happy to pay the whole R6.
Right on my first visit, I noticed that the pool wasn’t as clean as on previous years. The previous manager/attendant was no longer there.
The second time, apart from the muck floating, I also thought it odd when the attendant said she didn’t have R1 change (I gave a R5 note and a R2 coin) but she would give it back before I left... she never did.
The third time, the pool was empty of swimmers, but about ten grown-ups were having what appeared to be a very amusing afternoon chatter beyond the entrance by the counter... including all the supposed attendants who couldn’t be bothered to sell me a ticket... again.
And the filth was even worse in the water... this on a Wednesday.
The last straw was, as I did my first lap (wearing goggles) a huge chicken-bone was rolling right in the middle of lane 6 where I swam...
Although there are unfortunate things which happened in the past, there certainly are good lessons to be learned from the past by the so-called “new South Africa”: order, integrity, cleanliness... amongst others.
