The wisdom of living in this place will be lost

Abstract

These are the reflectins of Lipholo Bosielo as he contemplated leaving his village in the foothills of Lesotho’s Maluti Mountains, prior to the construction of the Mohale Dam. He had been born in and had raised his family in Molika-liko, a mountain valley, which was to be inundated by the dam’s reservoir. He was interviewed in late 1997, when he was 67, some six months before the Lesotho government initiated the resettlement plan. As a young man, recently married, he had left Molika-liko each year to take contract work in the South African mines, as did many men of his generation. Working conditions were tough and he contracted an infection in his legs that forced him to give up mining and continued to cause him great pain. Since the 1960s he had supported his family by farming, basket-making, mending shoes, and transporting cattle and goods to markets for others. His wife brewed beer and made brooms.

It is a sad state [of affairs] to leave behind fields—our fathers’ fields—because we had hoped that our children would also use them. We are very concerned about how our children will live without access to the fields … We need help from anywhere, because we never thought that some day we would move out of this place—but because we are nothing, the planners planned and we are not part of the planning.

—Lipholo Bosielo