For a time, K. Limakatso Kendall taught at the National University of Lesotho. While there, she gathered stories by or about the women of Lesotho. (Three quarters are by women; the rest are by men, recounting stories told to them.) In the wonderfully idiosyncratic collection, Basali! Stories by and about women in Lesotho, Kendall presents 16 of these stories, plus a small collection of annotated photos of life in Lesotho.Many of the writers are first-time authors. Some are recounting their own experiences, others are telling stories that happened to others. The fight for a good education comes up repeatedly (on the optimistic side), along with repeated incidents of domestic violence (on the pessimistic side). Several stories center on the search for work and the quest of women to help their children survive. What some of the stories lack in style, they compensate for in passion and insight.
Here are a few passages that stood out:
- Vengeance as motivation for education: “I promised my aunt that I would live to retaliate. The old woman needs to see me going up the ladder while she is swimming in the mud of poverty.” (Monica Nthabeleng Ramarothole, “The African Goddess”)
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Illegal immigration for education: “There was no place to hide. The alternative was to lie down flat in the veld and hope that our city clothes blended in well with the bush… We had heard that schools in the former protectorates were a lot better by comparison.” (Nomakhosi Mntuyedwa, “Escape to Manzini”)
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The outward signs of communism: “Ntate Mokhehle is a Communist… When he speaks, poisonous flames come out of his mouth.” (Hilda ‘M’amapele Chakela, “How I Became an Activist”)
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On not reading African writers in a Lesotho school: “We were not reading African writers; we were not even told that Africans were capable of writing novels or plays.” (Hilda ‘M’amapele Chakela, “How I Became an Activist”)
This is book #47 in my effort to read a book by an author from every African country in 2019. You can read reviews of all the books here.
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