14-year wait for bridge finally over
Its construction in a poor KZN community, after a long wait, has changed many lives, thanks partly to the Tribune. Agiza Hlongwane reports
SOUNDS of ululation punctured Kwamaphumulo lastweek, as locals celebrated with a level of fervour that suggested something truly special had happened. And indeed it had. After years of community lobbying and pressure from the Sunday Tribune through a series of articles, the provincial Department of Transport had finally delivered on an old promise to build a life-changing bridge for the poor community, located outside KwaDukuza (Stanger).
For decades, scores of people – from pensioners to teachers and school children as young as six – had been forced to dice with death as they crossed the fast-flowing waters of the Mvoti River to gain access to the rest of the world.
Drownings were reported every year.
In 2007, about 20 matric pupils in the Nkolovuzane area were prevented from writing some of their final year exams after heavy rains.
At the time, Nozipho Mhlongo, principal of Nkolovuzane Primary School, spoke of the humiliation of having to listen to school children discussing the shape and size of teachers’ anatomy, which was exposed during the daily cross- ings of the river to avoid getting wet.
Sometimes passing motorists would stop to watch the teachers.
Exposure to the water also resulted in bilharzia, pneumonia, colds and arthritis – associated with crossing the river.
And when there was a death in the village, coffins with bodies inside had to be carried across the river, sometimes tipping over into the water because of the slippery mud.
It was in 1998 that the Department of Transport, led by the then department head Kwazi Mbanjwa, reportedly made a promise to build a bridge for the community.
Over the years, the Tribune reported extensively on how this had failed to materialise.
Some community members had become so fed up, they threatened to boycott elections.
The community was dealt a further blow in 2009, general election year, when the provincial government erected billboards along the streets of Durban, claiming to have changed the lives of rural communities by building bridges – but not theirs.
The billboards proclaimed that “Imisebenzi iyabonakala” (the work is visible) and “Now our lives are better”.
But, thanks to government bureaucracy, the community had had to wait a further three years for the bridge to materialise.
However, the frustration of the long delay appeared to be forgotten on Thursday, as Transport MEC Willies Mchunu cut the ribbon to declare the bridge officially open.
Mhlongo, who has been crossing the river each working day since 1998, said it was a day she would never forget.
The first day the bridge became ready for use felt surreal for her.
“I stopped my car, reversed and hooted several times. It was that unbelievable,” she said.
“For me, it’s like I’m asleep, dreaming. This now means people are alive again.
“Our kids could not even get bread when the river was full. But now we will be able to take the culture of learning to another level because, in the past, no year passed by where we were not prevented from coming to school and kids missed school because of the river.
“Today means life because school children and community members were dying each year.
“It means a return to our dignity. To be naked in front of the children you teach and the whole community is the most demeaning thing.
“Of all the teachers who started here in 1998, I’m the only one (left). Many left because of dignity issues, some were injured, others became sick from pneumonia and others even died.
“A lot of the children here ended up being discouraged. They would abscond from school, not write exams, fail, get demotivated and then drop out of school and become hoodlums.
“But that is now history. Our dignity has returned.”
Since the construction of the bridge the school now has its own soccer field, though barren and skewed, thanks to a contractor.
She said she was now hoping for a donor to provide computers “so that my children can also press some buttons”.
Former ward councillor, Mbongwa Ncalane, who had been instrumental in lobbying for the bridge’s construction while in charge of the ward, described the day as “immensely rewarding”.
“Everyone is happy today. It shows that patience is a virtue,” said Ncalane.
Mchunu, speaking after joining school children on a celebratory dance on the R14 million bridge, heaped praise on the community for its patience and emphasised a need for “co-operation, instead of fighting with each other”.
But, as Mchunu continued his speech, the voice of a local man who later identified himself as 23-year-old Sibusiso Mchunu, interrupted.
“We need houses, too.”