Women in Lesotho: Gender Inequality

Many women in sub-Saharan Africa suffer relentlessly due to gender inequality in addition to other major underlying crises like poverty and HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately the gender roles and rituals attached to most African cultures are so strongly ingrained, it's difficult to convince people (including women) that they are unnecessary and even harmful. Gender inequality not only affects individual women, but negatively impacts families, communities, countries, and even national and global economies. In Lesotho girls receive more education than boys, generally, but still they often fall into the gender-specific role of wife and mother after finishing school, stifling their chances at a higher education and/or career. Therefore the husband and father of the family will look for work and pay even though the wife is likely better-equipped to find and hold a job with decent pay. (Note: the unemployment rate in Lesotho is unbelievably high so it is difficult for anyone to find work). Also women with absent husbands (whether he's at the bar, or a mine in South Africa, or a girlfriend's house) end up having to make money on their own somehow to support their families until their husbands return, if they return. Even if a woman is essentially the head of the household, final decisions and power will always go to the man in traditional households in Lesotho, or the husband's family.

Despite these more subtle, deep-seated gender issues in Lesotho's culture, some gender discrimination is more tangible. For example, culturally in Lesotho a married woman is considered the property of her husband. Men justify this action by saying they have paid "lebola," or a bride price, to his wife's family. Under this assumption, women needed their husband's permission to do almost anything (own land, open a bank account, wear pants), and unmarried women needed permission from their father or brother. A married woman could be beaten or raped by her husband, and nobody would ever help her because it was her husband's right.

In recent years Lesotho's government has created laws to protect women from such maltreatment, but they are slow to be implemented. Married women in Lesotho gained equality to men in 2006 under the Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act. Legally now any woman can own land, receive inheritance, and make her own decisions. Prior to 2006, women in Lesotho were considered legal minors. In 2003 women were given more respect and help with the Sexual Offenses Act which officially defined all forms of unwanted sexual penetration as rape, not just vaginal penetration as it was prior to this Act (This also gives legal rights and validity to men who are raped).

I applaud the government (prodded by certain aid organizations) for making these changes, but the reality is Lesotho’s culture still promotes the discrimination these laws are trying to forbid. Nobody in Lesotho knows these laws exist. Also Lesotho has not changed their Constitution to reflect this new standing of women. The government has made no effort to spread this information throughout Lesotho, particularly to rural areas. Many Basotho people strongly hold to their traditional values, keeping women at home in fear of their husbands' retaliation. Women need to know that they have rights, and citizens need to know that they should help promote these rights. Sadly (and pathetically if you ask me) most women still act like second-rate citizens because they are too afraid to break the cycle of abuse. The vast majority of these women are not aware of their legal rights, but still I doubt they would do anything to promote their rights anyway. Like many people, they are afraid of change. However, there are a handful of strong, confident women who are working for women's rights in Lesotho. They don't have a Women's Liberation Movement like we Americans did, but they work hard to help their fellow countrywomen nonetheless. Whether they are a few young women in a rural village in Qacha's Nek or a women lawyers group working with other countries in southern Africa, some women are making a difference and paving the way for the next generation of women in Lesotho.

Raining in Cape Town

I'm recently back from a fabulous vacation in South Africa! I began by taking the overnight bus from Bloemfontein to Cape Town. While in Bloem I hung out in the mall until the bus left at midnight. Unfortunately I was a big tool walking around the mall by myself with my giant backpack on, but I got to see the new Indiana Jones which was exciting.

Once in Cape Town, I walked to the Waterfront and met my friend JJ in a big beautiful hotel called The Commodore. We hugged and sat down to chat over coffee after I cleaned up. I was so happy to be with my good friend and looked forward to our week together. Artist and photographer, JJ L'Heureux, had returned from 2 weeks on Robben Island assisting researchers with a penguin study before meeting me so we both had interesting stories to tell. We went to the museums in central Cape Town, including the national art museum--I was in heaven even though it was a bizarre museum. Soon we were off to the Addo Elephant Rserve via Port Elizabeth. There, we were welcomed by the most romantic, luxurious lodge I have ever seen. JJ and I were surrounded by couples, and nobody was quite sure what to make of us. They couldn't tell if JJ was my mom, my sister, my sugar momma, or what, haha. Only one man had the audacity to ask, and we replied, "No, we're friends!" The Nguni Lodge in Addo offered game drives twice a day which we always attended, except for one day when we went on an Elephant Back Safari! The experience was unforgettable and indescribable. When I try to describe it, my words don't do it justice, and it even sounds cliche. But I will tell you that I have ridden, walked with, and fed very large elephants. They have large molars and soft tongues; and apparently elephant testicles are inside their bodies high in their rears which I didn't learn until after I was petting them. My elephant really loved me. Afterwards JJ and I were speechless--we had done something truly magical. The next day we returned to Cape Town for a couple rainy days in the city. We mostly relaxed but walked around the historic Muslim area, Bo-Kaap, one drizzly morning (with our ponchos on). Then we said our goodbyes before JJ left for Los Angeles, and I flew to Durban before taking a mini-bus back to Qacha's Nek, Lesotho.

I received a warm welcome home from friends and co-workers. I had been away from Qacha's Nek for some time so I was happy that people didn't forget about me. Soon I'll help train the new volunteers who just arrived, then I'm gearing up for a new school year in August. :)

Traveling Lady

It's been almost a year since I arrived in Lesotho, and it feels like time is really flying. I've been traveling around the north of Lesotho for the last 3 weeks. I'm happy to be gone from site (although I miss my friends and co-workers at site) because it's freezing up there and snowing. At first I went to Butha-Buthe to paint a mural for PSI. The mural is kind of a big condom ad so it's not something I'm dying to show everyone, but it was good practice in case I want to paint some murals of my own. The mural took a week. Then their was a security threat in Maseru (that actually turned out to be nothing) so I was told I couldn't travel through the capital to get home to Qacha's Nek in southern Lesotho. I took that opportunity to visit some of my other friends in the north who I don't see very often—and some new volunteers too. It was good to get some fresh perspectives from other volunteers, particularly a new volunteer who is in her 60s and doesn't waste her time here because she left a beautiful family to come to Lesotho.

Now I'm in Maseru doing some research for a few training sessions I will be holding for the brand new Community Health volunteers that just arrived a few days ago! I'm trying to find some concrete information on the laws affecting women's equality. So far I've found out that married women gained equality to men in 2006 which means unmarried women (no matter their age) are minors according to the legal system in Lesotho. Lesotho is a strange country in that women are more educated and literate and responsible for almost all matters of the family (including financial), yet culturally Basotho men have all the power. A funny thing about this power struggle is that Basotho men are small, skinny, and often intoxicated while the Basotho women are traditionally large. They could easily physically overpower their smaller male counterparts, but because the culture states that men have the power they succumb to their husbands' and fathers' abuse.

Anyway, it's about that time again to go on vacation! JJ, my good friend and previous boss, is already on Robben Island off Cape Town working on a penguin project. I'll meet up with her in Cape Town after the project is over and explore the biggest, coolest city in Africa! More on that later! Miss you all!

Basotho Time

Patience is definitely one quality I’ve improved since arriving in Lesotho thanks to… Basotho time. Patience can include many things: patience with language misunderstandings, with kids asking for money and candy, or just slow work progress in general. These are important in developing patience, but I’m talking specifically about just sitting and waiting. When our volunteer group arrived in Lesotho we were warned about “Basotho time,” but it’s still a major cultural difference that is difficult to tolerate. Basotho aren’t just late; sometimes they are ridiculously, unbelievably, inexcusably late. I spent all of last week in a rural area of Lesotho with my PCV friend Pam in her village, and it seemed like the whole week was run on Basotho time.

I traveled to Pam’s village with PSI in the back of a covered pick-up truck. They said they would pick me up at my village bus stop at 10 or 11am. I knew this meant after 11, but like a silly American I arrived at the stop at 10:30am. I sat on my backpack on the side of the road for three hours waiting, reading a book, texting PSI with no response. After the first two hours I got a little worried, maybe they weren’t coming, and I decided I would go home at 2pm. Finally though, a little before 2pm, they showed up. Then we drove for five hours on dirt roads over mountain passes before reaching our destination—but at least it was a free ride. :)

A couple days later Pam and some other volunteers hosted a Children’s Health Day at their village clinic. HIV counselors/testers from the hospital were coming from the camptown. The event was scheduled to start at 8am. The counselors arrived at the clinic at 11am, prepared their test kits until noon, and then some of them took their lunch breaks. It was really frustrating, but we weren’t paying them so there wasn’t much we could do but wait. Hundreds of Basotho women with babies and toddlers strapped to their backs were waiting too. Somehow we managed to see almost all of the children thanks to the dedicated clinic staff.

Later in the week I went on outreach with PSI to a high school in a rural area. Outreach involves HIV/AIDS education, then voluntary HIV testing and counseling. We were supposed to start at 10am, but that’s when we left the lodge where the counselors were staying. We arrived at the high school at about 10:30, but the school wasn’t ready yet. The teachers had to gather the students, and then we could begin. An hour and a half later we started the general presentation. That’s Lesotho. While the students were lining up to test for HIV after the presentation, I did some educational activities with small groups. Then I showed them male and female condoms and how to use them. Most Basotho are sexually active by age 15 so I always show high school students how to properly use a condom.

The day we returned to Qacha’s Nek I thought we were leaving at 10am, but a co-worker showed up at my friend’s house telling me to be ready at 8am. We were leaving early? Heavy clouds were rolling in, so I assumed we were going to try to beat the rain. I met my co-worker at 8, and we proceeded to visit her family’s homes in the area. We weren’t being picked up until 9am, but my co-worker wanted me to snap photos of her and her family members. That sneaky b****. Then we actually got picked up at 9am. We didn’t leave yet though. First we went back to the lodge where the rest of my co-workers were packing. I waited until 11am, then I climbed into the back of the truck with all the luggage and a lamb carcass. Then off we went, home to Qacha’s Nek. Basotho time = lots of waiting.

Happy Birthday to Me...

Lesotho wished me a Happy Birthday with the first signs of winter. Temperatures have dropped drastically, and it even snowed in the mountains last week (while I was in Maseru--ha!). I can even see my breath inside my house at night. I'm officially wearing my mild winter gear which includes: a beanie, scarf, long-sleeve t-shirt, long dress, hoodie, fleece (in morning and night), spandex leggings, light blanket wrapped around my waist (in morning and night), a long dress or skirt, socks, and tennies. In June and July, or harsh winter, I'll graduate to fleece vest, heavy blanket, down jacket, and hiking boots.

Also to prepare for winter I've cut my hair super short. It's something like a boy-cut pixie look that I did myself--I wish I could see my sisters' faces after reading that. Although I've been curious to see what my hair would look like so short, the cut was motivated by the cold weather and lack of plumbing and electricity. The less hair to wash, the less water I have to use and fetch. And of course my long hair took hours to dry, and wet hair really sucks when it's cold--thus the super-short 'do. :)

As a birthday present to myself, I bought two new blankets: one light blanket for wearing, and one heavy blanket for my bed. Already I've received a couple birthday packages and cards in the mail--a big thank you to all my friends and family who thought of me!! I can feel the cross-continental love from here!

p.s. I posted 2 blogs today at the same time. If you want to read about the funeral I attended, read the next blog down too. I didn't want to leave you with two depressing blogs in a row.

Saturday

Funerals are on Saturday in Lesotho. Saturdays are busy days in Lesotho. Last Saturday, I attended my first funeral in Lesotho; it was for Baby Moletsane. In typical Basotho fashion I wasn't told where the funeral was or when it started, just that it was on Saturday, April 26th. According to what other PCV friends have said, I figured the funeral would start at about 1pm. I left my house at about noon and starting walking towards the village where I hoped to find the funeral (since it obviously wasn't in my village); my ausi stayed there with family sometimes. Ironically I hitched a ride in the back of a covered pick-up truck with a coffin. Just me, 2 old men wearing blankets, and a dead guy in a coffin... oh Lesotho. I got off near the school where my ausi teaches, hoping the people there would know her and point me in the right direction. There were three little boys playing in the road who told me where to go. They actually pointed me in the opposite direction of where I was headed, but a friendly old man showed me the right way and even found me an escort who was also going to the funeral. We walked about 20 minutes down the road, picking up a few people along the way, and made it to the house.

I didn't see my ausi, but a woman I didn't know immediately led me to a rondavel house. I walked right into what I would call a "cultural experience"--a group of women dressed in purple and white stood in the middle of the round room singing and clapping. One woman pounded a simple beat on a large drum covered in animal skin, and another played a bell. I sat in a chair next to my neighbor, the only person I recognized. At first it was a bit intimidating, but I soon got comfortable enough. There were about 8 or so chairs against the wall, the rest of the women sat on the floor on the other side of the room. In the back of the room, a man who appeared to be a priest leading the ritual stood behind a simple white table with a single lit candle on it. He was a thin, middle-aged man with long clean dreads. He wore a long purple robe decorated with some cheetah-print fabric details, fabric stars, and embroidery. His hat, also purple with a big white star on it, looked like a little kid created their own version of the pope's tall hat. His dress appeared very "tribal" except poking out from under his robe were clean old school Adidas sneakers. Western culture seeps into almost every corner of the world, no matter how remote. He welcomed me in Sesotho shortly after I arrived.

Eventually the group moved outside in a procession led by a few men carrying the coffin. A bouquet of fake flowers with the store-tag still attached lay on top of the tiny white coffin. The official ceremony began. The small coffin sat on the dirt floor outside, in front of a row of men seated in chairs. I could feel tears swelling up in my eyes when I looked at the baby-size coffin so I looked down at the ground for most of the ceremony and tried to think of something else. For once I was glad to not understand what was being said in Sesotho. The ceremony was similar to any other funeral I had been to, except that men performed almost all of the rites. Only one woman spoke, compared to about a dozen men. Then when the funeral was over we walked to the burial site--only a few minutes from the house. There are so many people dying in Lesotho that the cemeteries are scattered throughout villages near homes and roads without any demarcation. The tiny coffin was placed in the pre-dug hole in the ground and covered with a large animal skin (probably the animal slaughtered for the post-funeral feast)... more speeches and songs. Then all the men took turns shoveling dirt back onto the grave, like everyone had to help bury the body. A few women threw a handful of dirt on the grave too, including my ausi who nearly collapsed after doing so. It was the first time I had seen her for a few weeks, and she looked exhausted and distraught.

Then tons of people came out of the woodworks because the most important part of the funeral was about to take place--the feast. At all funerals and weddings, the host is required to have a feast for all the guests. While it doesn't seem unusual for such an event to serve food, paying for many funerals and feasts drains Basotho (and sub-saharan African) families' funds, leaving little or no money for school fees or healthcare. Finally I got to talk with my ausi while she was eating. I was happy to see her, but I knew she was suffering deeply. She said she felt better than the previous week, though, so at least she's healing. Then I said my goodbyes to everyone and headed home on a taxi with some other women from my village...

Dying Young

Bad news this week... I was told that my ausi's baby boy, Moletsane, passed away. I think he was about 20 months old--obviously too young to die. He's been a sick baby on and off since he was born. Really it's not surprising, but it's something that shouldn't happen. I'm not sure how or why he died. I haven't seen my ausi (sister) yet, and I'm really not looking forward to it. I can't imagine her suffering.

My poor ausi had to the rush to the hospital in town when her baby got really sick. She had to wait for a taxi in her family's village and take the slow public transport to the hospital--calling me along the way to give her his medical "bukana" at the road. Then when she reached the hospital, she found there were no doctors there so they couldn't help her (a common story). So she traveled to the next closest hospital which is over an hour away by public transport, then she had to cross the river in a rowboat with her dying baby. Just imagine. Then a day or two later, her baby died.

The worst part about Moletsane's death is that it's not a rare story in Lesotho. Babies and children die all the time from AIDS, malnutrition, and a long list of other curable diseases (even something as seemingly minor as diarrhea). The news of this death has caused similar stories (and worse) to surface--stories of sick mothers having multiple babies, all of them dying before they reach 2 years. Even pregnant women like this refuse to get tested for HIV (because they know they probably have it). Even worse these women keep having sex (with whoever), and continue to birth sick babies. The idea of contraceptives is slow to reach Basotho, not to mention the cost is excessive, although we are trying to educate and distribute them at LPPA. Other babies are born to very young mothers (one of my 7th graders is pregnant) who often don't know how to care for their baby and can't afford to keep it healthy. Routine post-natal care like vaccinations and check-ups is rare, especially in rural areas. Even births traditionally take place at the maternal grandmother's home, not at a hospital, making it hard to give infants proper care. All of these things lead to babies and children dying.

Death is a natural part of life, but death at a young age, whether its 18 months or 30 years, is always tragic somehow. HIV and poverty have shrouded Lesotho in death and suffering. Clinics are packed with people waiting, and cemeteries are full of those who were too late to seek help. Lesotho's working population (age 15-40) is slowly disappearing, contributing to the lack of human resources in the country (i.e. nurses and teachers).

I don't know if Moletsane died of HIV/AIDS, and I don't think I'll have the audacity to ask. Regardless it raises the issue that everybody knows about, but nobody talks about. I'm in Lesotho as an "HIV/AIDS Advisor", but I really don't know where to begin. The problems are so many and run so deep.