Picture a train that leaves station A at 0830hrs to reach station X thirty minutes before another train from station B reaches the same station and into the main same rail and one day that train A leaves station A thirty minutes late. 

Collision, collision, collision and on top of it all, catastrophe!!!!! 

This is what a majority of southern Africa?s rural people are feeling right now, catastrophe!!!!

And I do speak for Zimbabwe when I say I feel it too. The design of Africa is that its majority population is dwelling in the rural or countryside, over and over again it has been alluded that this is the people of the world most affected by most weather phenomena and most susceptible and threatened by climate change. Back in the day there was enough trust in indigenous knowledge systems regarding the weather and its patterns. 

For those with little understanding of what indigenous knowledge systems is, the system is known specifically as the Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LIKS). The Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems encompasses dynamic and culture specific knowledge, practices and beliefs all of which are considered significantly resourceful in increasing resilience to climate change effects at local community levels. 

For some time, LIKS has proven to be effective in determining when the first good rains sufficient for productive agriculture were coming. They have been used to determine when the rain season was to end and the coming of dry winters. 

But now the, use of Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LIKS) as a grassroots adaptive strategy to climate change and variability challenges in the world?s poor economies including southern Africa raises serious concerns. It raises serious concerns because the systems cannot quickly adapt to and synchronize with the phenomenon of climate change. The further reason for that raises from LIKS being as a result of patterns and trends observed over long periods of time. Unfortunate as it is, some communities not only in Zimbabwe but in many parts of Africa solely depend on LIKS as the only source of guidelines to weather phenomenon occurring in a season. Sadly they cannot be exact in determining most short term weather phenomenon. 

Whilst the darkest cloud according to LIKS resembles great rainstorms or a lot of rain, the rain cannot be quantified, neither does the cloud give any signal that a flood is coming. These are the limitations to which modern technologies will have to complement with actual figures and predictions. The availability of these modern technologies is limited to the more privileged parts of societies in Africa and when great rains come and result in a flood, the already poor, agriculture dependent people in rural areas are caught off-guard. This is even true for Zimbabwe right now where following the El Nino induced drought, not even the meteorological department did not tell the people with access to their publication to brace for a tremendous excess of water coming as a result of the La Nina effect that follows after the El Nino. 

Already this season, areas that used to experience dry spells and seasonal water shortages are experiencing flooding around the whole country. One can only imagine how serious the flooding will be in areas that used to flood under the normal seasonal circumstances in the country. It is in this regard that the dependency on LIKS be put under review and policies on climate change ensure that the systems be secondary to actual quantitative information derived from modern technologies. Beyond that, rural Africa, which is already poor will only continue to experience perpetual poverty cycles and those dwelling therein will continue to say:

WE WERE BETRAYED BY THAT WHICH WE HAVE TRSUSTED FOR AGES, WE WERE BETRAYED BY THAT WHICH WE KNOW