Orange Farm Service Delivery Protest

Just another day in paradise! Early morning seeking the smoke on the wind.. I received a tip-off on Monday morning (4th June 2012) that there was a service delivery protest in Orange Farm about 40km from Johannesburg. As it was about 7:30 I feared that i might be to late because these things normally happen early in the mornings and when the cops arrive it gets dispersed very quickly, although that's not always the case, some times it continues for days with running battles between cops and unhappy residents flaring up all over the place. But on this occasion I was to late indeed.

 

On my arrival i found that a big section of the road was blockaded but there were no protesters in sight, the only thing I found were these two kids cleaning the road in front of their house, where protesters burned tyres.

So me and the journalist who joined me a couple of minutes later got a call that we had to return to Johannesburg for another story so we made our way back and last found the protesters a couple of kilometres down the road  in front of a municipal building.

I took this photograph of a man while I was driving back, he obviously made the best of the protest and gathered some of the materials they used to block the roads.

So as we got to the municipal building we parked our cars and I started photographing the protesters, I got this picture of youths blocking the road whilst a Police Nyala drove by.

Angry protesters were singing and dancing in front of the building.

A protester standing on a cart giving voice to his unhappiness.

The best part of the protest was when a woman, one of the residents, walked up to us and told us that the Councillor of the area, was as skinny as her and now his fat, gesturing with her hands. Not big like you, she said, but fat like a pig. He sits and eats bacon all day, while we don't have houses and basic services she said. The best part was that she would cut his testicles out and eat them if the situation doesn't change very soon in Orange Farm. Her words not mine.