…’Maitumeleng Raise narrates a story of hope, legitimate expectation and disappointment
By Silence Charumbira and Mamphasa Monethi recently in Polihali, Mokhotlong
‘MAITUMELENG Raise (60) watches with indifference as workers dig up her husband’s 37-year-old grave.
It is an unusual sighting as her husband’s remains are being exhumed along with those of 49 others at the same graveyard. This is the first time such an activity is being done in the area.
The deceased husband, Tankiso Raise, is being exhumed for reburial as his and others’ grave lie within the catchment area of the big Polihali Dam, that is being constructed by the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) under the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP II).
The graves at the site in Masakong Village, are part of the over 400 that will be relocated by the time the dam is completed in 2027.
For ‘Maitumeleng, the process of reburial evokes mixed feelings. Her husband was a leader of one of the infamous famo music gangs, to whom the ongoing bloodbath in different communities in Lesotho and South Africa has been attributed.
Famo is a traditional protest music genre that is famous for hurling insults at rivals and often results in violent confrontations and killings. Although Maitumeleng prefers not to talk about him, she says Tankiso met his death in 1987, and at the time, she had become fed up with him for being an absent husband. He was always away in the mines in South Africa where he eventually was murdered by a rival gang.
And that Lesotho is currently grappling with incessant gang-related killings despite a government ban on the famo gang activities, is an unwelcome reminder of her troubled past.
But her feelings about her husband’s exhumation are precisely an indication of her feelings about the rest of the project. The project will see hundreds of villagers from different communities being relocated to make way for the dam and Maitumeleng no longer knows what to expect.
“For me to get through this process, I literally had to ask God for strength,” says ‘Maitumeleng in a short interview at the new burial site.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Although I had never witnessed this before, I knew seeing the remains of my loved ones decades after their deaths was never going to be easy. My husband and two children have all been reburied and it was a difficult exercise for me. The picture is traumatising and I literally had to ask for strength from God, but I had no option because I was obliged to see the remains of my loved ones are reburied properly. The process was a bitter pill to swallow.”
The following day, her home is engulfed in a pungent, sooty smell from the cow dung fire that her older sister is lighting. She takes us into her bedroom, with a dated but well kept bedroom suite. ‘Maitumeleng says she is also concerned about the displacement of neighbouring villages. While her home is not directly affected by the dam, the indirect effects could be equally detrimental.
“We rely on animal dung for fuel to cook and warm our homes because there are no trees for firewood. That said, this area is extremely cold. We receive snow and sometimes it snows even in summer, so, we use a lot of energy. Others who are wealthy resort to paraffin or gas but some of us cannot afford that. Now that some villagers are being moved, they will move with their cattle and other livestock and that means those who will remain will be stranded as there are no trees for firewood in the area,” she says.
But the LHDA allays her fears and says although some villagers were being moved, their new homes would be nearby.
All the affected households, over 400 of them according to the LHDA, are expected to have been relocated by 2027 when the dam project is scheduled to have been completed.
They will be compensated in line with a compensation policy that is being handled by the LHDA. Among other things, they will be compensated for their fields, buildings and grazing pastures.
In the past, some villagers have complained about the walls of their houses cracking from tremors resultant of dynamite blasts in the construction area. And ‘Maitumeleng is no exception.
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All three of the old buildings in her homestead have wide cracks that make her worry about the fate of a new house that she is nearly completing.
Although the blasts are now fewer, fears are that some of the houses will not survive anymore tremors. What’s worse, she has a new house that is nearing completion. But her hope is that the worst has passed otherwise her investment would come down crumbling like the proverbial sandcastle.
For one of her houses, her stone masoned bedroom, the project sent people to repair the craters but “they did a terrible job”, she says.
“The cracks are still wide open even after they repaired. They used different shades of paint and left the walls all messy,” she says.
Although she is not being resettled, ‘Maitumeleng wishes otherwise.
“Before I went to look for a job in Johannesburg kitchens, I survived on doing menial jobs in my neighbours’ fields. And now that my neighbours are to be relocated along with their fields, that means coming back home to settle would be condemning myself to hunger,” she says.
‘Maitumeleng also opines that the LHDA must provide more psycho-social support for villagers in the area. So far, she remembers seeing a counsellor in the early stages of the project, but she feels that it is not enough.
“I suffer from hypertension. My blood pressure is always high and I think we must be compensated. I think that besides compensation for the fields, houses and other properties, we must be compensated for a lot of emotional effects as well. Even now as we speak, this reburials process has earned me high blood pressure, but I will not get any form of support.
“For some of us who will not be resettled, we are guaranteed not to get anything. The just over M18 000 that I got for the traditional ceremony to rebury our loved ones is probably all we will ever get, particularly because we are not getting displaced. I wish we were being relocated because only then, would we be guaranteed any real compensation,” ‘Maitumeleng adds.
Along with several others from similarly placed villages, they had allegedly been told that they would be resettled but that has since changed. And ‘Maitumeleng feels that has done a lot of damage to the LHDA’s reputation.
“They had told us they would resettle us but now that has changed. The LHDA even asked us to draw up our preferred house plans, instilled hope that our houses would be relocated but then they eventually told us that we were not to be resettled,” ‘Maitumeleng says.
This story is part of a special series to be published in the next three weeks in collaboration with Seinoli Legal Centre.
