How to cross a river...

He's not heavy...

The Tugela River in KwaZulu Natal is some 520 kilometres long and varies in width from 20 metres to some 50 metres at its mouth. Building a bridge across it is certainly tricky since the water is fast-flowing and there are crocodiles in many parts of it, but it is quite straightforward.

At its simplest, a bridge could simply be a rope that prevents a person from being swept away. A strong swimmer can drag a rope across and tie it on the other side. Then others can pull themselves, hand-over-hand, across.

A simple suspension bridge requires more work. You'll need eight heavy pieces of concrete-clad rebar, four long wooden tree trunks or concrete-clad rebar posts (about four metres in length). Oh, and a whole lot of very sturdy rope.

First, draw a square in the dirt some six metres a side on either side of the river. Choose a good stable area close to the river's bank. Dig a deep hole at least a metre wide and two metres deep at each corner of the square. Tie some rope around each of your concrete blocks and bury these at the corners with the rope sticking out the ground. These are your bracing foundations.

Now, make a triangle from the corners of your square and inside the square with the two beams. They must be at least two metres apart in the centre of the square. This will be the width of your bridge.

Whatever the width of your bridge, tie a rope that width to each beam a metre from the bottom and one a bit wider at the top. Dig two one-metre deep holes and place the foot of each beam in the hole. Brace the beams upright by tying them to the ropes you already braced on the corners. You now have the foundations you need to support a suspension bridge and can pull additional ropes and wooden cross-spars between the two supports across your river.

I provide this instruction as a means of assistance to the communities living up and along the Tugela River.

According to Nonkululeko Mbatha, spokesperson for the Department of Transport, there are some 250 schools that need bridges to be built across rivers around the country. The government only has the capacity to build some 13 to 14 pedestrian bridges a year.

Building bridges is not difficult or complex. It does, however, require people who – when confronted with a river – wonder how they will cross it, not who will bridge it for them. It is clear that South Africa's rural areas no longer contain people who are self-reliant. All these people, with ambition and imagination, have left for better work opportunities in the big cities.

The most desirable people in any economy are not just skilled people, but the people who have the ability to skill themselves. People who can solve problems through their own initiative, not just the efforts of others. By definition, these people like to work to their highest ability.

A qualified engineer would like to solve problems not solved before. They don't want to spend their lives working on problems that are – for them – at junior-school level.

This problem facing the communities along the Tugela River is now also facing the rest of the economy. Where are the engineers that, when faced with South Africa's crippling power shortage, know exactly how to solve it? Where are the businessmen? Where the manufacturers that can create thousands of jobs?

They, like the most talented in the communities along the Tugela, have migrated abroad in search of opportunities that challenge them to their highest level.

Leaving behind people that, when faced with a fast-flowing river, have no idea how to cross it.