By Buziwe Nocuze
- A 50-year-old man from Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape earns money guiding afraid visitors into Isinuka’s mud caves.
- He makes between R150 and R200 on a good day and uses the money to buy food for his family.
A 50-year-old man from Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape is feeding his family by helping visitors get inside the mud caves and sulphur pools at Isinuka.
Visitors travel from different provinces to use the sulphurous water and mud for bathing and drinking to treat skin problems, body pains and for spiritual cleansing. Most of them are too afraid to go inside the mud cave themselves.
The man first visited Isinuka because he had a rash and wanted the mud for healing. While he was there, visitors from Durban asked him to go inside for them because they were scared.
He went in and came out with black and white mud. They gave him R50.
“Right there, I knew that this is something that I can do to feed my family because I was not working,” he said. “I continued that day assisting people and charging them. My wife couldn’t believe that I bought food for them.”
He does not charge a fixed amount and lets visitors decide what to pay. But if they offer too little, he asks for more.
“I had a customer who wanted a 20-litre of sulphur water and wanted to pay R10. I asked him to add another R10 so that I get R20,” he said.
On a good day, he makes between R150 and R200.
“Now I don’t have to stress about what my family is going to eat because I know that I won’t go home empty handed,” he said.
Pictured above: The mud caves and sulphur pools at Isinuka near Port St Johns.
Image source: We are South Africans/Facebook
