Latest news with #Transkei
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
The Rev Zolile Mbali obituary
My friend the Rev Zolile Mbali, who has died aged 84, was an Anglican priest in the UK and in his native South Africa, from which he was forced to move in the early 1970s. Zoli was born in Johannesburg to a Xhosa father and a Sotho mother, Elizabeth (nee Makhoatle), a teacher. After his birth his mother took him to live on the family farm beyond Matatiele in the remote Drakensburg foothills of Transkei. He lived there until he was 10, combining herding with learning in isiXhosa and Sesotho. Sent to further his education in Afrikaans, he stayed with a clergyman uncle near Johannesburg, whose curate at the time was Desmond Tutu. As a teenager Zoli's formal education was interrupted by the need to support his family, and while working in harsh conditions on a railway tunnel, he contracted typhoid. In hospital he decided to study for the Anglican priesthood, attending St Bede's theological college in Mthatha and then Fort Hare University. Zoli moved to the UK in 1969 on a World Council of Churches scholarship to Oxford on Tutu's recommendation, studying theology at Queen's College, Oxford. There he met a British woman, Charlotte Lebon, a postgraduate student at St Hugh's College. Returning to South Africa in 1971, he was ordained in the Natal diocese and undertook parish work before becoming the first black chaplain at Grahamstown's white theological college in the Eastern Cape. The couple became engaged, but the apartheid ban on mixed relationships prevented Charlotte from joining Zoli, so in 1973 she moved to Gaborone in Botswana to be nearer to him. A year later he joined her in Botswana after being warned that the South African police were after him. Less than a month later he and Charlotte were married, in 1975. In Gaborone Zoli combined a post at Botswana Theological Extension Programme with ministry among refugees and rural communities. South Africa having refused to renew his passport, Zoli then became a refugee himself. With cross-border military raids putting the family at risk, he and Charlotte decided to return to the UK in 1981, by which time they had three daughters, Thandiwe, Ma-Jali and Mandisa. On his arrival Zoli was appointed vicar of All Saints' church in Preston-on-Tees in County Durham, before moving to parish ministry in Leicestershire in 1984, serving first as curate in the Leicester suburb of Knighton and then as vicar to four rural village churches known as 'the Langtons' near Market Harborough. His excoriating book, The Churches and Racism: A Black South African Perspective, published in 1987, was based on a PhD he had recently completed at the University of Leeds. From 1988 to 1992 Zoli worked as a pioneering diocesan community relations officer in Leicester, and he was made a canon of Leicester Cathedral in 1990. Once apartheid fell, he and his family went back to South Africa in 1993, settling in Durban, where Charlotte joined the staff of Natal University while Zoli ministered to parishioners stigmatised by HIV/Aids and Anglican students at the university. A gentle and courageous man with a great gift for storytelling, he retired from the ministry in 2003 and would later survive a serious criminal assault and several bouts of ill-health. In 2017 his daughters persuaded him to retire to the UK with Charlotte to be nearer their grandchildren. Suffering from dementia, he spent his last days in St Anselm's nursing home in Walmer, Kent. He is survived by Charlotte, their daughters and five grandchildren.
IOL News
6 days ago
- IOL News
Anticipation builds for the 2025 Sardine Run along the KZN coast
Jayce Govender with sardines he netted during last year's sardine run Image: Suppllied IN A FEW weeks, the KZN coastline will be a spectacular hub of activity as the 2025 Sardine Run is expected to create a fishing frenzy. Seine netters and the KZN Sharks Board have begun preparations for the greatest shoal on earth, with predictions that sardines will arrive in KZN by the second week of June. Wayne Harrison, the head of operations at the KZN Sharks Board, said while predictions could be tricky, the shores were expected to be filled with silvery cold-water fish. 'We are dealing with nature and at the moment things are looking positive. But things can change in a moment. We can expect sardines in two weeks time, or they can pop up tomorrow, or not pop up at all. But by mid-June, they should be arriving in KZN,' Harrison said. He said from the reports they were receiving from Transkei three days ago, sardines were spotted passing the Umtata River mouth in the Eastern Cape, and were heading north. 'Activity in the shallow waters is looking positive, but the sardines have not passed through Port St John's as yet. Once the sardines are spotted, we will liaise with local authorities and bathing will be closed due to activity levels from various different marine animals. 'The ocean becomes a hub of activity during the sardine run, with different types of fish, whales, orcas, dolphins and sharks." The annual sardine run is also a hub of activity for fisherfolk, shark fishermen, and seine netters. 'It is an incredible time for fishing. Netting of the sardines is out of this world to view, and the commercial value to the sardine run, netting and selling sardines, is amazing. It is a mass cash injection that comes into the KZN south coast due to holidaymakers and visitors coming to view the sardine run,' added Harrison. The KZN Sharks Board have stopped using shark nets during the sardine run, and have changed their system from nets to drum lines. The drumlines replaced almost 50% of the nets, which were in place, and was introduced to reduce the bycatch of harmless non-shark species such as whales, dolphins and turtles, which are accidently caught in the nets. Harrison said the drum lines were already in place in anticipation of the whale migration and the annual sardine run, which occurred in winter. Seine netter, Jayce Govender, said he was also keeping an eye out for sardines, and expected to net his first shoal in the second week of June. 'Currently, there are large shoals offshore from East London to Coffee Bay. We received information that there are lots of birds, gannets, dolphins and shark activity in the area. The sardines are hugging the coastline and are sitting in a pocket of cold water between Waterfall Bluff and Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape. 'They are waiting for a cold front to push the cooler water into the KZN coastline. This allows sardines to migrate faster as they follow cooler water. The water temperature is currently about 22 degrees off the KZN coastline and sardines will arrive once the temperature drops by a few degrees,' he added. Govender said cooler water held more plankton and sardines fed on that. 'Next week, we expect swells of up to four metres, which will help the sardines move closer. From June 10, we should start seeing some action on our coastline. Besides sardines, fisherfolk look forward to the shoals of red-eye fish, shad, garrick and mackerel,' added Govender.
