Praying for a bridge when the rains come
Raging river cuts Kwazulu-natal pupils off from school for up to a week at a time
THE Lovu river in southern KwaZuluNatal can turn from a gentle stream into a raging torrent after just a few cloudbursts.
That is when its cascading waters make it impossible to cross. Last year the river claimed the lives of two men — one of them a man who was trying to rescue his son. The child was saved but the father drowned.
Most days, the river is a benign if irritating obstacle that hundreds of children — pupils who attend Hlengiwe High School— must cross on their way to school. Most of the school’s pupils live in KwaThoyama village on the opposite side of the river.
For 10 years the school’s principal, Percy Khumalo, has urged his pupils to pray for a bridge to be built over the river. Without a bridge, the children are cut off from school when the rains come. Khumalo said the provincial department of education was aware of their plight.
Department spokesman Muzi Mahlambi said senior officials were working with the provincial department of transport on plans for a bridge.
On most days during the rainy season — from September to November — the school’s 10 classrooms are occupied by only 29 pupils. The rest of the 270 children are trapped on the other side of Lovu.
Teachers said the river had also affected the school’s matric pass rate. The school has an average 54% matric pass rate and at most two pupils obtain university-entry marks. “It seems this year we won’t get a good pass rate either,” said Khumalo.
He said when heavy rains swelled the river, children often had to stay at home for an entire week.
Even when the waters subside, pupils have to put their uniforms into plastic bags, place these on their heads and wade through sometimes shoulderhigh water in the wet season.
It is not only the pupils who have to battle the waters of the Lovu. Chief Nhlosoyezwe Hlengwa, the traditional leader of the community, said it was humiliating to see women, young and old, having to strip naked to cross the river.
An alternative route is a mountainous 8km trip on foot, a distance too far for many pupils to walk.
Some pupils have witnessed their parents being swept away by the river.
Sanele Mzulwini, 16, lost his father to the river last year. Sanele was struggling in the water and his father Albert, 60, came to help him. Mzulwini was swept away, but Sanele made it to safety. “There was just too much water and he couldn’t make it,” said Sanele, who is in Grade 10.
Mthandeni Khuzwayo, 15, lost his father Sipho, 49, to the waters.
Siphelele Muthwa, 19, who is in Grade 12, said pupils started to worry when rain begins falling during the school day.
“You start thinking about the river,” she said. “It’s worse in the evening when you realise that you may not be able to get home.”