From Mandeni to marine science

As a child, Buyani Mazeka stuttered so severely that he communicated with his hands. He wrote in mirror image, every word reversed, every sentence flipped, and repeated a grade before the problem was identified.

He is now 32, a postdoctoral research fellow in the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Department of Biological Sciences, and only the second person in South Africa to have completed a PhD in marine nematology. His doctoral research, supervised by Dr Natasha Karenyi, examined the effects of human activity on aquatic organisms in False Bay, using free-living nematodes as biological indicators of environmental change. He will graduate on 2 April.

A Sunday television show and a research course

Buyani’s interest in animals began with a programme on SABC 3 that aired on Sundays. His family, based in a small town of Mandeni in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), knew not to disturb him during that time. When he arrived at the University of Zululand in Empangeni, 45 minutes from home, he discovered for the first time that you could study animals as a discipline. He chose zoology.

“You can’t study with an empty stomach … there are students here who come during the day with an empty stomach and leave with an empty stomach afterwards.”

Until 2016, he had never left KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). A research programme run by the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) took students from historically disadvantaged universities and exposed them to the broader landscape of marine science. It led to a place on a two-week research cruise run by UCT, where Buyani met staff and students from the university for the first time. He had not known UCT existed. “For us, when we were applying for university, we were using a central application office. Your options are limited to KZN only. We didn’t know about UCT,” he said.

That cruise changed the trajectory of his life. He contacted Dr Karenyi after seeing an advert for a PhD project aligned with his interests. Their first meeting, scheduled for 30 minutes, ran for much longer. She told him to finish his master’s with strong marks if he wanted to come to UCT. He passed cum laude; his first distinction at any level of study.

Three weeks, then a funeral

Buyani arrived in Cape Town to begin his PhD in July 2021. He had never lived in a city before and noted that his father was someone who never showed emotions – even during the most difficult times. Buyani reflected on this in his dissertation: “You made even the most challenging circumstances seem manageable, until I grew up and saw the world differently. It always amazed me how you could smile through any situation, even in your final hours, reassuring me that you were fine, even as those around you panicked. I understand now that ‘pillars must stand tall, no matter the circumstances, for if they bend or show weakness, everything will crumble.’”

Three weeks later, his father died. The only son, he became the breadwinner overnight. Throughout his doctorate, he juggled research with demonstrating, tutoring, and working at the Bolus Herbarium – for professional development and to earn extra money to send home.

“When it comes to dreaming, the ceiling is not there anymore. All I can see is just the stars.”

He lost two more father figures during his PhD studies and could not afford to travel to KZN for their funerals. He does not recount this for sympathy. He recounts it because it is common. Funding often arrives months into the academic year. Students go hungry. Buyani and colleagues on the postgraduate committee attempted to start a food drive. Dr Mohammed Kajee, one of his colleagues at the time, went on to establish a UCT foodbank. This initiative continues today.

“You can’t study with an empty stomach,” Buyani said. “And believe it or not, there are students here who come during the day with an empty stomach and leave with an empty stomach afterwards.” The observation is not rhetorical. It is a description of a structural problem that persists because it has been normalised.

Every milestone a victory

He traces his understanding of systemic inequality to a single piece of advice from a master’s supervisor who told him his biggest weakness was his writing, and that the only remedy was to read. It was the first time he finished a book. Reading led him to South Africa’s history of engineered disadvantage, and to the recognition that the conditions he had grown up with were not natural. “Humans had a meeting one day,” he said, “and came up with a plan to actually disadvantage particular people who were not even born.”

“Every milestone that you make is a victory, because you are not supposed to be there in the first place.”

He is direct about what this means in practice. A student from a public school taught in isiZulu and a student from a Cambridge-curriculum private school arrive at university and are told the ground is level. It is not. “The gap is just too much,” he said. “We are expected, when we come here at the university, that the ground is levelled. Compete. But I’m still learning how to communicate in English; how to write properly in English. I have not used a microscope before.”

He added: “When it comes to dreaming, the ceiling is not there anymore. All I can see is just the stars.”

His postdoctoral work will extend the nematode research in collaboration with Professor Federica Semprucci in Italy and Professor Agnes Muthumbi at the University of Nairobi. Doors, he said, keep opening; doors he did not know existed. He jokes with friends that if, in 20 years, a list of Africa’s top scientists is published and his name is not on it, they should know the list is wrong.

He means it. But the joke sits next to something quieter. “Every milestone that you make is a victory,” he noted, “because you are not supposed to be there in the first place.”

Buyani submitted his PhD dissertation in February 2025, a decade after arriving at the University of Zululand not knowing you could study animals. His mother, who cleared the room for that Sunday television show, was right to do so.