School run now no water hazard

30 April 2017 - 02:00 By JEFF WICKS
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Bonginkosi Thusi wades through Kosi Bay. Fear of the water kept him out of school for years.
Bonginkosi Thusi wades through Kosi Bay. Fear of the water kept him out of school for years.
Image: THULI DLAMINI

Bawinile Ngubane is often late for school, but it is not always her fault — rather blame the hippos and crocodiles she has to brave on her way there.

Ngubane, 18, lives in Enkovukeni, an isolated village of just 80 homesteads in the far north of KwaZulu-Natal that seems trapped in the past. It has no running water, no electricity and virtually no roads.

And thanks to its location on an island in the lakes that make up Kosi Bay, its residents have to cross animal-infested water to do just about anything.

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If there is a death in a family, the coffin has to be carried across the water, held high by grieving relatives or friends. If a home needs renovating, the materials have to be ferried across the water.

Enkovukeni is nestled atop a hill which rises from the centre of the bay, its homes hidden from view by lush natural forest. A sandy path snakes its way up the hillside, etched into the earth by decades of wear.

While the abundant waters provide the fish that sustain the community, they also separate residents from even the most basic of services. No one has died trying to cross the bay to the mainland, but wading across the animal-infested water is dangerous.

It is a situation matric pupil Ngubane knows all too well. She has braved the waters of the bay since she was five, nowadays to attend Nhlange High School.

Ngubane said she was often late for school because herds of hippo would be wallowing in the water, unwilling to budge.

"Sometimes they are in the way and they won't move. There is nothing we can do except wait for them to pass, and then we can carry on," she told the Sunday Times.

"It's hard for us, especially in summer when it rains a lot. The level of the water rises up to your chest but we have to do it [cross the water] to get to school. On those days we are very wet because we would have to swim. It is also dangerous for us if there is lightning."

It was on this island in August that Independent Electoral Commission officials officiating in the local government elections had to close the polling station early so as not to have to cross the water in the dark. They carted ballot sheets across the water at 6am and then, after the votes had been counted and the sun was at its highest point, took the sealed ballot boxes back to the mainland.

While Ngubane speaks, Bonginkosi Thusi, 16, rolls up his trousers and carries his school shoes in an outstretched hand as he trudges through the water. Crossing the bay meant overcoming a deep-seated fear that kept him out of school for years — and has left him well behind others of his age.

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"I started going to school when I was nine years old because I was afraid of crossing the lake," he said. "One day when I was crossing there was a big hippo there in front of me. Luckily, an old man saw it, came to help me and scared it off."

Thusi, at an age when he should be midway through high school, is in Grade 6.

But his and Ngubane's lives might finally be made easier.

Last week, the KwaZulu-Natal education department unveiled an aluminium ferry that will get them to and from the island. The custom-made ferry has two outboard motors and can carry 24 pupils.

Pupils will don life-jackets for every voyage, and a qualified skipper will handle the vessel.

Seven other ferries, at R500,000 apiece, have been commissioned by the department and will find their way to communities that most need them. Pupils at 181 schools in the province need to cross rivers and lakes to get to school, and the eight ferries are being tested as a solution.

Access to schooling was a right, education MEC Mthandeni Dlungwane said at the unveiling. "These people are completely isolated but, even so, they cannot be forgotten."

But while life has improved for Ngubane and her schoolmates, residents of the village insist more needs to be done.

Themba Khuzwayo, who is in his 70s, said life on the island was hard. "If someone dies here, we need to carry the coffin across so they can be buried. If they are not buried in Enkovukeni, we need to carry the body across the water. The boat is good for our children, but what we really need here is a bridge."

wicksj@sundaytimes.co.za

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