Mzoo Spot

Floods in general are not uncommon in South Africa. Recent flooding events do not come near some of the past events, both in strength and the trail of disaster they left behind. South Africa has a long record of flooding events dating back to the 1800s. Sporadic though these records are, they nonetheless give us a glimpse of what happened in the past. This past is very important to anchor our present day discussions, especially in the light of climate change. The first recorded flood event in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) was in April 1856, where 686mm of rainfall were reported. It was in September 1987, however that KZN experienced what is considered to be South Africa's greatest natural disaster in terms of lives lost and damage to infrastructure. During this disaster, 506 people lost their lives and approximately 60 000 people were affected one way or another. A few years earlier KZN was devastated by Tropical Cyclone Damoina. On January 1984 Damoina formed in the Indian Ocean to the east...

Nomzamo High School in Port Alfred is the first senior secondary school in the township, and therefore a lot is expected out of it. It is with great pain now to see this school taking a serious turn to the worst. Take for instance the recent matric results,in this school 43 students wrote matric exams, but only 13 managed to pass (2 of these managed a university entrance pass). Just across the road, Kuyasa Combined School achieved a splendid 70.5 % matric pass rate. Both schools receive their students from the same community, and therefore it can be argued that these students live in similar socio-economic conditions. What this proves is that teachers at Nomzamo are failing the students.