Mamlambo Strikes Again

Death seems always close here. Saturday week, a much loved community member was tragically gunned down. And now this...

We received news that one of the religious pilgrims lost his life by the waterfall below us on Sunday. The cause of death still has to be identified but according to the police the probable cause is that he fell to his death negotiating the palisade fencing by the falls. This is not cool. Maybe that fence by Manie Mulder waterfall needs to be moved or the gate left open as it looks like the Mamlambo who is believed to be living in the plunge pool at the base of the falls, claimed another victim. I myself have skirted that fence due to the gate being locked. It is a small ledge and you have to hold on. Now if the pilgrim had stuff in his hands he could easily have fallen.

Speaking to one of the pilgrims about what could have happened, she said yes the snake, what she called the Mamlambo, pulled the person in using her poison breath. She went on to tell me that the Mamlambo can take many forms, a snake, a person, a stick or even silver coins. She told me a firsthand account of her seeing the Mamlambo. Her mother, brother and her, went to visit the graveside of her father, while crossing a river very similar to this stream in the kloof, she saw some movement in the water. She looked and saw a woman lying in the water on her back with her hair flowing in the water. It wore clothes that she described as snow and she could see the shape of her body though the water. She tagged her brother to see if he could see this woman. He looked sideways, got such a fright and ran. While running he was bitten by a small brown snake. All their feet felt heavy and sore afterwards. The family never returned to the area and a look of sadness passed over her face as she said that her mother joined her father in 2014. She ended the conversation with the words that this snake is very strong here. Sadly a lot of unfortunate accidents, 13 to date in the last 4 years have occurred down in the kloof all attributed to the Mamlambo in the eyes of the pilgrims.

My problem is not with the daily pilgrims coming for the holy water or bathing in the stream naked but my problem is with the pilgrims who camp over night. They are the ones who come up into the veldt above the kloof to cut down the Protea trees to use in their spiritual cleansing. I am not happy about the Protea forest being decimated at an alarming rate. I spend quite a bit of my time when I am down in the kloof talking to the pilgrims and explaining that cutting down the Protea trees is not good. Maybe I should tell them that these Protea trees belong to the Mamlambo, and she is not happy camper about her children being cut down.

There are a large number of trees in my garden, sadly none Proteas but my garden does overlooks the Protea forested veldt. Now one of the trees in my garden is giving the sewer line a hard time coping with the waste and the roots at the same time. Sadly I had to put this tree down today. I got the tree fellers to neatly pile the wood in the veldt to dry out so that the pilgrims could use this alternate wood to the Proteas so that this tree’s life would not be wasted.