"Water is our friend
and our enemy"

In the in-flight magazine of LAM, Mozambique’s airline, there is an article on the magnificence of Cahora Bassa titled "when man tames nature". That was the October edition. In March the tune is quite different. Perhaps the question that ought to be asked is who exactly is taming whom and how. It follows therefore to also ask how Mozambique is going to manage its biggest resource: water?

The Cahora Bassa might have been built to catch all the water from the two other hydroelectric dams in Zambia and Zimbabwe, but in times of trouble it is forced to spew out some of that water down unto the unsuspecting villagers on the Zambezi River Basin and its surroundings.

The floods destroyed 20 000 hectares of crops leaving about 200 000 people displaced and around 400 000 people without a reliable source of food, according to the UN. While questions are still being posed on why there is no Zambezi River basin authority similar to the Nile River authority, the lives of people like Terezinia Antonio and her neighbour Mwanache Selemane of Lironde village in northern Sofala have been drastically changed by the unpredictable and shifting pattern of the water from the great Zambezi.

The carnage in the wake of the floods has left Terezinia with hardly any belongings. She managed to save only one goat which she carried on her back while fleeing from the rising water. When the Cahora Bassa, some 400 kilometers upstream, discharged an equivalent of 350 swimming pools per second, Terezinia was unaware that five days later this water would reach her village.

She laments the loss of her possessions but she has mixed feelings about living so close to the river. "The water is our enemy and yet it is our friend. We need it but this time it has destroyed all we have," says Terezenia Antonio.

Residents of Lironde village along the Zambezi have a familial relation to water: that of co-dependence and co-existence. The river reduces the cost of food by providing abundant fish, which makes up a great deal of the population’s diet. Costly transportation fees can too be avoided by simply paddling to the other shore.

Clearly, it is not enough to respond to this type of emergency. Contingency plans must be set in place to prevent loss of life. Joseph Nkambala, the village chief, remembers only too well the floods of previous years. "We are used to spending about two months of the last couple of years away from home but this time a woman from the village died on the way to this camp."

They have been forcefully turned into nomads by water. His people set up a camp at the same spot every year. It is not every year that the situation turns to be this destructive. "We are now reduced to subsist on berries and fruits from the forest," Joseph says pointing at the children emerging from the forest with bunches of green bananas.

Preparing for floods on a local level is hampered by several things - one being the cost of canoes. Most families who managed to salvage belongings did so because they could paddle away in their canoes. But for most, even paying the 10 000 Meticais (half a dollar) is scarcely affordable in this region with no employment opportunities. "We have to pay the agricultural department for felling the ‘Ntondo’ tree from which we make canoes. It’s not a bad deal considering that one canoe can last up to 15 to 20 years if kept in good condition. But my husband and I simply do not have the money," explains Terezinia Antonio.

Even those who could afford it seem to dread the thought of having to hollow the tree out to shape a canoe. With rudimentary tools, it takes a full month’s hard labour to build a canoe. This time, they argue can be valuably used elsewhere like tilling the fields and fishing.

Yet both Mwanache and Terezinia are grateful to their neighbours for having canoes. This is what saved them as the water had risen to waist length by midday of February 19. Terezinia explains that most people in her village had waited until it was almost too late because they had hoped the water wouldn’t go any higher.

"We are tired of all these disasters. From the Limpopo last year, to the Zambezi this year. What’s next? Lurio and Rovuma rivers? ," wonders Joseph Nkambala.

While the people from Lironde have settled and are making daily trips to what used to be their fields to harvest the submerged sugar cane, the people who now reside in Sombreiro, six kilometers away from Joseph Nkambala’s people, have nothing to salvage.

ACT member Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is assisting up to 2500 people in this low-lying village with shelter material. Although the village head had allocated temporary sites to the newcomers, shelter is scanty because Sombreiro is running out of reed and grass for house building.

The village has now swelled to four times its normal size since it took in people from neighbouring areas. The plastic sheeting from LWF will go a long way in helping some of the 3200 displaced people. The National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) will assist the remaining 700 destitute people.

The cameras, the media and the sound of helicopters might have disappeared as soon as people appeared to cope with the disaster, but the ever-present threat of raging waters still looms.