When Cultural Relativism Falls Short

If you are traveling from Hlotse to Thaba Tseka the Basotho will tell you that the direction is up. Often, more than North and South, up and down are used to indicate direction.  The same language is used for emotions. “How was your day ‘Me (mother)?” I ask. “Oh, Ausi (sister), it was up and down,” ‘Me responds.

At 10,000 feet, up is certainly a fitting description for Thaba Tseka.  

Thaba Tseka's beautiful mountains

There is a main paved road that runs through Thaba Tseka, which is referred to as “Town.” It has a smattering of small shops selling beets, potatoes, carrots, meat, and cheap clothing.

My first week in Thaba Tseka I was walking up to Town in search of canned peaches. (Peaches grow up here in the summer and I had heard you can sometimes buy canned peaches in the winter). As I was walking, three school girls approached me.  I saw them whisper amongst themselves and then one timidly said, "Lumela Ausi (hello sister).”

“Lumelang bo-ausi (hello sisters), ” I smile. 

“Can you help us with our English?” the girls ask.

“Of course,” I say.

So they pull out their novels for English class and show me the chapter assigned for homework. We sit down at the side of the road and begin to read together. After each paragraph we stop and review what is happening in the story and which English words are difficult.

While the story takes place in South Africa, it is quite fitting. It’s about a young girl who becomes pregnant and goes to see a witch doctor with her friend.

“What do you think of witch doctors?” the girls ask, looking at me expectantly.

I take a deep breath. I have had this question before—last time I avoided it. Witch doctors or traditional healers are a cultural norm here. If there’s anything my IDS & Global Studies degrees taught me it was to be careful of imposing my own western norms and values on other cultures.  The last thing I want to do is “westernize” these girls. Basotho culture has so many beautiful elements. I love the traditional clothing, the dancing, and the way everyone is referred to as “sister,” “brother,”  “mother” or “father.”

“How old are you girls?” I ask.

“Fifteen,” they respond.

I realize just how important this question is. There are high rates of teenage pregnancy here, and it is not uncommon for young girls to go to the witch doctor for an abortion.* After all, the stakes are high. Pregnant girls are expelled from school. The girls are shamed, while a blind eye is turned to the boys.  Consequently, young girls often feel that a witch doctor is the only place they can go for help. (There are no “medical” abortions in Lesotho—it’s illegal).

I take another deep breath, and decide to simply speak what’s on my heart.  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the girl in the story to go to a witch doctor because she is putting her health and even her own life at risk.  If this girl was in Lesotho, she could go to the witch doctor and come back infected with HIV.** I wouldn’t want any young girl to risk her life like that,” I finally say.

The girls are quiet. I’m not sure what they think of what I’ve told them. We turn back to the story and end up talking about choices and how even though we might not always chose our circumstances, we can choose how we respond to them.

The three beautiful fifteen-year-olds thank me and walk away.

I slowly walk back to my hut, praying for those three beautiful girls and hoping with all my heart that they are not the girl in the story we read together.

When I get home I realize I never did find those canned peaches.

*It is important to note that some traditional healers argue that the witch doctors who perform illegal abortions are frauds. These traditional healers believe in herbal remedies and extracts that have been passed down through tradition and do not condone illegal practices. There have been cases of successful collaboration between traditional healers and medical doctors in South Africa.

**Some Traditional Healers/Witch Doctors practice “cutting.” They make small cuts on the skin with a razor blade and then apply plant extracts or powders. When these razor blades are reused HIV can be transmitted.  This is particularly problematic in Lesotho where about 1/4^th of the population is HIV positive.

 I would like to further note that the purpose of this post is NOT to devalue the role that traditional healers can play in society.  Not all traditional healers are the same and practices can vary. However, I do want to highlight that the practices of some witch doctors/ traditional healers can be harmful and it is important to both acknowledge and speak frankly about this reality.

Welcome to Lesotho

I’ve been in Lesotho for a week now and already I feel like there are so many things to write about. However, for the moment, I am still mesmerized by all the new places I’ve had the pleasure to visit. So on that note, I wanted to spend the majority of this blog post introducing you to where I’ve been staying in this past week as well as a few of the projects Help Lesotho is doing in the area.

Welcome to Hlotse

If you drive South from Johannesburg, through Free State, you will come to the Northern boarder post that separates South Africa from Lesotho. About twenty minutes across the boarder is  Holtse, a small camptown.  The center of Holtse has three main paved roads—two that loop and meet at the top of the town and one that runs through the middle. To my knowledge, there are no street names. There’s the road that takes me to the craft market, the road that leads to Shop Right, and the road with the pretty view of the mountains.

Just outside the center of town is a long dirt road lined little makeshift shops selling everything from vegetables to airtime. At the very end of this road is Help Lesotho’s Graff Leadership Center, which has served as my home base for the past week. The center is beautiful. It consists of two large buildings, a large grassy area, and a small playground. This space is multipurpose. It includes staff offices, a floor dedicated to high school girls who live onsite, a library, and a computer room used for community skills training.

While the Leadership Center is engaging with the community at multiple levels, its main focus is empowering Basotho girls. About 35 girls live at the center and each one of them has a story that will tug at your heartstrings. I had the privilege of reading a few of the narratives the girls had written about their own experiences prior to living at the center. Some were AIDS orphans and had been handed from one relative to the next. Others had been sexually abused, some on a frequent basis. In fact, I was told that one of the reasons why there are large windows in the stairwells is because girls are afraid of dark spaces where a man might conceal himself from view. The center aims to offer these girls a Safe Haven—a place where they can study, learn, grow, and be empowered to contribute to building a better Lesotho. 

Welcome to Pitseng

About half an hour from Hlotse is an area called Pitseng. It  is more rural than Hlotse, and consists mainly of small homes and fields. Help Lesotho has a second center here, which serves as a safe place for children and youth to come play and participate in drama and dance clubs.  Most importantly, it is a place where youth can speak openly about HIV/AIDS, grief, and loss.  One of my projects this week was to capture what day-to-day life looks like for children, youth and grandmothers living in Pitseng. Here are a few shots from the day.

I love the red door and windows. 

Welcome To Butha Buthe

The drive up to Butha Buthe is stunning—rolling fields with mountains in the backdrop, and a handful of horses on the horizon.

The reason for our trip to Butha Buthe was Grandmother Day, an event that takes place once a month where bonkhono (grandmothers) meet for  half a day to share the challenges they are facing, sing, dance, and eat a meal together. Each month a topic is covered that is pertinent to their day-to-day life, and the bonkhono have the opportunity to share what they are struggling with and give each other advice, with some guidance from a Help Lesotho staff member. This month the theme was Grief and Loss, a topic the bonkhono are all too familiar with. Many of them are the sole provider for their grandchildren and sometimes even other orphans in the community.

One can’t help but fall in love with these grandmothers. They are a spirited group who break out into song and dance spontaneously. They speak to you so sincerely, grabbing your hand whilst chattering away in Sesotho. For many of them, this group is the highlight of their month.  While we all shared a meal together, one of the grandmothers spoke to me with the help of a translator: “I love Grandmother Days.  Even though I have a bad knee, and things are difficult, I would never miss a grandmother event.”

A few personal notes:

I have been welcomed warmly here in Hlotse.  The staff have given me a Sesotho name, Kamohelo. My new nickname is Kamo.

I am leaving on Sepetmeber 1^st for Thaba Tseka, where I will be posted for the year.  Everyone keeps telling me how beautiful it is up there, so I am incredibly excited to see my new home. 

The Setting: A brief description of Lesotho

        Where have you come from and where are you going? 
        (Socrates) Plato, The Phaedrus

Every story has setting. The actions of men and women, both real and fictional, do not occur in a vacuum but are bound by both time and place. In Global Studies terminology, we are shaped by our ‘politics of location.’  Simply put, our beliefs, ideas and actions—that is to say ‘our stories’—are not separate from our communities and societies but are unavoidably shaped by them.

The aim of this blog is to record stories from Thaba Tseka. However, with the above in mind it is important to begin with an important DISCLAIMER: The fact that the majority of my life has been spent in “western” settings will unavoidably shape the stories recorded. Moreover, I am not Basotho and as such I cannot claim to speak on behalf the Basotho living in Lesotho. However, what I can do is share my own experiences with Basotho children, youth, and grandmothers and hope that this provides some small insight into daily life here.

Returning to the idea of setting I want to being by tell you a bit about Lesotho’s location, history, and culture in the hopes that this will provide a helpful framework for the stories recorded in this space over the coming year.

The Location:

Lesotho is a small, independent, land-locked country, located in the middle of South Africa.  The majority of the country is mountainous, which is why Lesotho is sometimes referred to as “Kingdom in the Sky.”  In the area I am working, Thaba Tseka, it gets so cold that there is snow in the winter.

Culture:

Lesotho is a culturally homogenous country. The Basotho are the indigenous people who live there, and the majority are Catholic Christians.  The traditional dress of the Basotho people are blankets which they wrap around themselves to stay warm.

Brief History: 

Lesotho was formerly called Basutoland and was unified under the Basotho King, Moshoeshoe I, in the early 1800s.  The Dutch (Boers) who had settled in the Cape Colony of South Africa tried to make land claims on Basutoland that resulted in conflicts in both 1858 and 1865. This led King Moshoeshoe I to appeal to the British for help, and ultimately Basutoland became a British Protectorate under Queen Victoria. In 1966, Basutoland became fully independent from Britain and was officially named the Kingdom of Lesotho.

During apartheid South Africa, Lesotho served as home base for many humanitarian organizations. Since Lesotho was independent and did not follow any kind of apartheid policy, humanitarian agencies would set up their offices in Lesotho and then travel to South Africa to do their work.

Lesotho Today:

Today Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy. The current king is Lestsie III and the current prime minister is Thomas Thabane.

The country itself is poor and has the third highest level of HIV/AIDS  in the world. Its small size and relatively low international economic importance mean that it is a country that is often forgotten by media outlets and in international politics.

Lesotho’s National Flag

Personal Remarks: 

I hope that this post has given you a small glimpse of where I will be living and working over the next twelve months.

I will be flying to Johannesburg, South Africa on August 19^th (today) and will be spending some time in Leribe (also called Hlotse) before making the trek up to Thaba Tseka.  When both time and Internet connection allow, I will share the stories I hear and write about the people I meet in this space.

I am so grateful that I am not on this year long journey alone, but am blessed enough to share it with all of you.