![\"The](\"https:\/\/glendawarburton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/double-limpopo.jpg?w=300\")
<\/a>The trees are on what is usually the bank<\/p><\/div>\n
The reports coming out of Mocambique were scarce and varied.\u00a0 For those in the know, if the Limpopo floods its banks in South Africa, then it surely will flood the lowlands of Mocambique.<\/p>\n
Vague verbal rumours from residents of a resort near Xai\u00a0Xai filtered through to me in Swaziland of bad floods in Chokwe, the water levels were higher than in 2000, that Xai\u00a0Xai\u00a0and surrounds were on red alert, but in the main there was a careless silence from news agencies.\u00a0 I watched reports on floods in Queensland, fires in Franschoek, snowstorms in Britain and all the while our neighbours were drowning in a sea of muddy water.<\/p>\n
After a worrying four days I heard the road was open, with restrictions, and I could return to my base in Chizavane, some 40 kilometres north of Xai\u00a0Xai.\u00a0 I set off from Swaziland early in the morning not knowing what delays might await me along the way.\u00a0 Maputo was its usual busily chaotic self, needing concentration and patience.\u00a0 Thereafter the EN1 was eerily quiet.<\/p>\n
It took me a while to figure out what was different.\u00a0 As I drove through a small hamlet a young lady suddenly jumped out of the shelter of a shop and tried to wave me down.\u00a0 Not something that happens too often on this road.\u00a0 That is when I realised that there were no mini buses.\u00a0 There were also no buses and no trucks.\u00a0 The further north I went the quieter the road became.<\/p>\n
Once I passed Manhica, the eeriness\u00a0deepened because now there were no people.\u00a0 Pools of water blinked in the intermittent sunlight along the side of the road, stretching outwards on both sides.\u00a0 As I got to the cane fields of Chinavane, I began to see the first actual evidence of floods.\u00a0 Roads alongside cane fields were canals, the brick making kilns were covered with tarps, there was hardly a person in sight.\u00a0 At one point I passed a small group of women wading down a road with bundles on their heads, probably making for higher ground.<\/p>\n
The contrast when I reached the town of Macia\u00a0was shocking.\u00a0 People milled around in what seemed like their thousands.\u00a0 The noise was intense, the activity frenetic.\u00a0 I later found out that rural communities had been evacuated to this town.\u00a0 Apparently many of the Chokwe residents were taking shelter here. \u00a0Once on the other side of the town, however, the emptiness continued.<\/p>\n
Finally I reached Chicumbane, the last village before Xai\u00a0Xai on the bank of the Limpopo floodplain.\u00a0 Here were the first real signs that there was a problem: a military helicopter parked near the football field, two big groups standing listening to the soldiers, a couple of large trucks with huge equipment loaded on them.\u00a0 I knew the point at the edge of the town at which I would see the extent of the floods.\u00a0 In a way the scene matched the picture I had in my head, although the reality was far more overwhelming than I expected.<\/p>\n
I stopped the car and got out to ingest the magnitude of the flooded plain before me.\u00a0 I have never seen so much water.\u00a0 There was no evidence of any landmark, just electricity pylons standing out of the saturating brown swamp that stretched as far as the eye could see.\u00a0 On the road over the floodplain were two military Bailey bridges, and the few vehicles there were patiently awaited their turn to go over the raised humps of metal.<\/p>\n
I passed groups of people on the side of the road, discussing whatever displaced persons discuss.\u00a0 Others were in boats, with bundles of possessions in them.\u00a0 A number of cows were grazing in calm bovine fashion on the edge of the road.\u00a0 I saw a truck half submerged parked next to what must have been the owner\u2019s home.\u00a0 I wondered why he had not heeded the warnings to move.<\/p>\n
Xai\u00a0Xai was like a ghost town.\u00a0 The only places open for business were the petrol stations, and one restaurant.\u00a0 As I reached the tributary that runs through the centre of the city, I saw a number of people standing looking into what is normally a bed of reeds, now a substantial river.\u00a0 As I crossed, a movement caught my eye and I saw a man wading thigh deep down a street that borders the river.<\/p>\n
The scene changed dramatically once more when I reached the higher ground of the city.\u00a0 The same mass of urgent humanity that I had seen in Macia, though not quite as intense in number.\u00a0 Until I reached the outskirts of the city that is.\u00a0 A well-known landmark on the edge of Xai\u00a0Xai, especially to travellers north in this vast land, is a filling station and stop called Petromac.<\/p>\n
I stared in amazement at the scene before me.\u00a0 It seemed that every shop in town had erected a stall alongside the road from this point on, and the throngs of people around them were seething and vibrant.\u00a0 The mini buses had established their station on the right, and business, it seemed, was booming.\u00a0 It was an amazing atmosphere, where people who are used to adapting to the vagaries of their land, were getting on with their lives without, it seemed, any resentment or anger.\u00a0 It was almost like a carnival, and I wanted to get out and be a part of it and drink from the positive energy of these remarkable men, women and children.<\/p>\n
As I travelled the last 40 kilometres to where I turn off at Chizavane, I wondered at the strength and resilience of these Mocambicans.\u00a0 All I had seen along this six-hour journey, was communities dealing with a problem they had dealt with many times before in a mature and logical manner.\u00a0 There was no wailing, no standing on the side of the road begging, there was just a getting on with the business of living.<\/p>\n
Back at The Beach as we call it, a neighbour tells how he watched a man being swept downstream, hanging onto the tail of his cow.\u00a0 In his desperation to save his animal he couldn\u2019t heed the calls of those on the banks to let go and swim to the bank.\u00a0 No one knows if either of them made it to safety.\u00a0 There are reports of the river at Chokwe being 11 metres higher than normal, some 10 kilometres in width.\u00a0 The mind grapples with the vision of this, and the impact on humans, animals and land.<\/p>\n
The months to come will be hard.\u00a0 Already there are fears of cholera and dysentery outbreaks.\u00a0 As I neared the bridge over the Limpopo, I smelt from the higher ground that was emerging from the receding water, the unmistakable aroma of rotting flesh.\u00a0 Chokwe, hardest hit by the floods, is a major vegetable producing area of Gaza province, so fresh produce will be hard to come by. \u00a0The repairs to roads, bridges and homes are set to be in the billions.<\/p>\n
The world is silent.\u00a0 Are we bored with floods in Mocambique?\u00a0 Are there too many natural disasters in this world of ours, that another just dulls the senses?<\/p>\n
I am indignant, because this is a generous nation.\u00a0 I remember when Cyclone Damoina\u00a0hit way back in the early eighties, out of Swaziland and South Africa, Mocambique was the most devastated.\u00a0 Yet the government of that day sent a donation of cement to Swaziland to help it rebuild its infrastructure. \u00a0I am humbled each week when the man who works as my guard comes back to work bearing gifts of cassava, sweet potatoes, pawpaws whatever, but it is always way more than I need.\u00a0 They are always willing to lend a hand when needed.<\/p>\n
It is as well that the citizens of Mocambique have t resilience developed over many decades of hardship to overlook the lack of generosity of others towards them and to weather the storms that frequently overflow them.<\/p>\n
Even as the rains continue, they do not cry and wail for someone to come to their rescue.\u00a0 They do not blame their government and the world at large for what they are going through.\u00a0 They get up as soon as the rain stops and they start doing what needs to be done to get everything running again as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
There is a lesson to be learnt from these people on the eastern side of southern Africa.\u00a0 It is a lesson of humanity, of the value of a positive attitude, with no sense of or demand for entitlement, only of living each day to the best of your collective ability.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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