As temperatures soared to 40ºC in Vredendal, children sought some relief from the heat in rivers and pools.
|||Western Cape - It’s 9.15am and the temperature has already hit the mid-30s in Vredendal. James van Rooyen waits patiently outside one of only two public swimming pools in a 40km radius. He is first in line.
Pool supervisor Dennis Petersen arrives at work, and let’s the eager boy in, even though the pool only opens at 10am. James is happy to help Petersen turn on the sprinklers and prepare for the deluge of people seeking relief from the heat.
By 11am, the mercury has risen to 37°C. The pool is packed. More than 200 people make their way down to the pool by 2pm, when the temperature has soared to 40°C.
It’s so hot, some believe it is possible to fry an egg on the bonnet of a car that has been standing outside all day.
Oom Jaco offers his white Toyota bakkie. Dansil Cloete, who works at a car dealership, tries. His first attempt flops horribly. The second time, everyone loses interest when the egg is still raw after five minutes.
Perhaps it wasn’t that hot after all.
For the rest of the town – those not down at the pool – it’s business as usual.
Many brave the heat to do Christmas shopping. And immediately after, flood drive-throughs – nobody wants to leave the comfort of air conditioning – to buy ice-cream.
On the outskirts of the town, a large group of boys – mostly the children of farmworkers – are coming back from a swim in the Olifants River. But, by 4pm, Madeleen Lukas, 11, and her friend Annelien Beukes, 7, are going there for the first time for the day.
They don’t have the R5 needed to gain entry to the pool. The two girls play by themselves in the shallow part of the river. Madeleen insists that it’s safe for them to do so.
She’ll swim by the river until her mother finishes work at 6pm. Her grandmother, Martha, says come rain or shine, the farmworkers must be at work.
By 5pm, the temperature seems to have cooled considerably. Locals say this is by no means the hottest day they’ve had.
According to weather services, the heatwave is expected to continue in the area. Petersen is bracing himself. Crowds of over 300 people have been known to descend on the pool. - Cape Argus