Polihali Village
4 – 9 March 2024
How do I describe the last five days out here in this remote corner of Lesotho, where few tourists ever venture. As I write in our small prefab home, the earth starts to shake. Not an earthquake, but violent, as another blast is detonated, exploding rocks to make a tunnel for what will hopefully one day be the only sustainable dam to give enough water to the city of Johannesburg. No mean feat.
It's after 5 pm and sweat numbing hot. The small house breathes heat, outside its not much better. Friday afternoon after ours, but on site, there is no such thing as a normal working day. Like a port, it’s a never ending, organic system, guided not only by routine but by necessity.
My first impression of Lesotho was: mountains. And secondly, a lack of oppression, despite poverty and lack of resources, I saw peace, a miracle of survival as we headed, higher and higher. From small “villages” to a place where no one could live, or stay, people stay.
Driving, people exist. In a way a person from the outside, without context and with a certain number of unknown standards, which all, disappear in the cool mountain air. It’s a quick reset. Herders, around, in the hills, by the roads, livestock seemingly free. I must wonder how this reality still can function. The daily routine, so far removed from what has become the “reality”.
But I started to think, Why are we, asking questions about someone else’s reality. Because we feel stronger in our voice, for a reason we can’t reckon with.
Do I think they are less energized by their daily routine. Not at all. If anything, I envy the belief in the flow of the natural voice. And the deep connection to land, which is life. At the end of the day, I feel like a witness to an energy where what will be, is not sanctioned, questioned, or taken for granted. It is, it pulses, it chooses, and regulates. Without social conduct. Day by day, the ground and water say when, how, and how much.
The strange part about returning to Polihali Village is the sense of comfort, the familiarity of a somewhat dryer landscape, with a usual pace, the blasting rock, the constant stream of construction, the houses built around what will be a dam higher than one would be able to comprehend. The laughter and loud voices at the end of the day, against a sharp sunset people flock to taxis, sheep and donkeys seem to graze unnoticed around the site, washing dries on barbed wire fencing, children walk home for what seems like miles, cheerful, carrying satchels almost their own size, oblivious to the bulldozers, hoping to get a sweet if someone in a car passes.
