…a village’s long walk through grief and neglect
Kabelo Masoabi
IN the highlands of Lesotho, where mountains rise in quiet defiance and paths are carved not by machines but by memory, life is measured in distance, endurance, and sacrifice.
In the village of Ha Ntisi, Malibamatšo in Thaba-Tseka, these realities are not abstract—they are lived daily and deeply by a community bound together by hardship and resilience.
At 3 a.m., when the mountains still lie wrapped in darkness and silence, the men of Ha Ntisi begin their journey. There is no engine to start, no road to follow—only a narrow path etched into the earth by generations of footsteps. Their destination lies four hours away in Mphorosane, at a mortuary where the body of a man they knew, laughed with, and lived alongside waits to be brought home.
The deceased, Makalo Sentalo, met his end far from these hills, deep underground in the illegal mines (Litotomeng) in South Africa. A month earlier, he succumbed to a respiratory illness after inhaling methane in the suffocating darkness beneath the earth’s surface. It took nearly four weeks – and a desperate scramble for money – for his family to return his body to Lesotho. Now, the final stretch of his journey rests on the shoulders of his community.
By dawn, the men lift the coffin. Its handles are not designed for endurance, and there are no protective gloves – only bare hands gripping the cold metal. A donkey trails behind, carrying five-litre bottles of water that sway gently with each step. The path is unforgiving: a descent into a shallow river, followed by a relentless climb from Ha Tau toward a village perched high on a hill, isolated by the absence of a road.
Endurance under the sun
The sun rises quickly, and with it comes the heat. For two hours, they walk without stopping. Sweat darkens their shirts, dust clings to their legs, and their breathing grows heavier with each step. The mountain does not yield easily.
Eventually, they pause beneath the thin shade of a lone tree – an island of relief in a vast, open landscape. Twenty minutes pass. No more can be spared. They rise again.
Then, suddenly, a crack. One of the coffin’s handles snaps. The weight shifts violently, forcing the men to drop it before it falls completely. For a moment, no one speaks. Frustration hangs in the air, thick and suffocating. Time is no longer a luxury – they all know what heat can do, what delay might mean for the body they carry.
Then, quietly, one man steps away. He approaches the donkey, unties the ropes securing the water bottles, and returns. With deliberate hands, he wraps the rope around the coffin, looping it tightly to form a makeshift grip. It is crude, imperfect – but it will hold. It has to. They lift again.
The climb grows steeper, the sun harsher, the silence heavier. Step by step, they carry not just a coffin, but the weight of duty, tradition, and dignity.
When they finally crest the hill, their village comes into view – small, weathered, waiting. It is around 11 a.m. There is no time to rest. The funeral begins almost immediately.
For the family, it is a moment of closure after weeks of uncertainty and grief. For the men, it marks the end of a journey that demanded everything their bodies could give – and then more.
A community left behind
Beyond the mourning, another burden lingers. For local government councillor, Phamphang Mokotjela, the ordeal cuts deeper than physical exhaustion. It is a stark reminder of a responsibility he carries daily: the well-being of a community that feels forgotten.
Villagers are vocal in their frustration. Nearly 300 people live atop this hill, cut off from basic infrastructure. There is no road connecting them to neighbouring villages, no reliable access for vehicles – only footpaths that turn every emergency and every journey into a test of endurance. They say their cries have gone unheard for too long.
Mr Mokotjela, however, points to a different struggle. Development priorities, he argues, are shaped at the community council level, where road infrastructure has repeatedly lost out in votes to other pressing needs. It is a cycle of limited resources and competing demands, where progress feels perpetually out of reach.
And so, life in Ha Ntisi continues as it always has.
When someone falls ill, they are carried for approximately three hours – some dying before reaching the health centre at Ha Lejone. When goods are needed, they are carried. And when a man dies, he is carried home – over rivers, up hills, across a landscape as beautiful as it is unforgiving.
In these mountains, grief does not travel lightly.
Children walking for education
Beyond the burden of carrying their dead, the living in Ha Ntisi endure another quiet, relentless struggle – one that unfolds daily in the lives of their children.
There is only one primary school in the village. It stands as both a blessing and a boundary, nurturing pupils up to Grade 7. Beyond that point, education becomes a journey measured not in ambition, but in distance, fatigue, and sacrifice.
The nearest secondary schools are in Ha Katse and Ha Lejone – a three-hour walk in one direction. Six hours in total, every day.
There are no alternatives. No buses rumble through the hills. No bicycles glide along dusty roads – because there are no roads. Only narrow footpaths that wind through valleys, across streams, and up punishing slopes.
So they walk.
They rise at 4 a.m., long before sunrise. In the biting cold, often without breakfast, they step into the darkness guided only by memory of the path. By first light, they are already deep into their journey. School itself becomes only part of the day.
By the time lessons end, exhaustion has already taken hold. Yet the journey is only half complete. They must turn back, retracing every hill, every crossing, every aching step.
The sun sets as they climb toward home. It is around 7 p.m. when they finally arrive. For many, that is when the struggle deepens.
Voices of the students
“Even though one gets used to it,” says Moepa Fahlaka, a student at Katse High School.
“There is no time to study when you get home. You leave at 4 a.m. and come back late, around 7 p.m. By then, the body has nothing left to give. All you need is to rest and sleep because you are fully exhausted. Your feet hurt, and your muscles cramp as soon as you sit down.”
The pain lingers, settling into bones still too young to carry such strain. Legs throb through the night. Feet swell from endless walking. Even sitting becomes an effort.
Another student, Ntšeliseng Koloti, adds: “There are no house chores you can do during the week. You just can’t”.
Homework becomes a burden. Revision, an impossibility. Dreams of academic success are slowly eroded – not by lack of ability, but by the unforgiving reality of distance.
And still, they wake again at 4 a.m.
Day after day, the cycle repeats – through heat, cold, and rain that turns paths into slippery ribbons of mud. There are no shortcuts. Only endurance.
In Ha Ntisi, the pursuit of education is not confined to classrooms. It is carved into the earth, written in footprints stretching across miles, and carried in the determination of children who walk farther than they should have to – just for a chance to learn.
A village chooses electricity
In the past decade, the village made a choice – one shaped by hope.
Through council deliberations, electrification was prioritised above all else. It was seen as a step toward dignity, a fragile but meaningful bridge between isolation and progress. Poles were erected, wires stretched across the rugged landscape, and for the first time, light glowed in homes long dependent on fire and fading daylight.
It did not shorten distances or carve roads into the mountains. But it brought something quieter – possibility.
For students, that light has become a small refuge. After long, exhausting days, they can at least open their books, even if only briefly. They scribble assignments, revise what they can, and try to hold on to lessons fatigue threatens to erase.
It is not enough – but it matters.
The struggle for clean water
For Limakatso Lekhanya – a villager, the absence of a road is a hardship – but not the greatest one. Her concern runs deeper, like the river her community depends on.
Each day, villagers descend along rocky paths to fetch water from a shared source. It is a long journey – but worse is what awaits.
“We drink from the same source as animals. And because of that, we are often going to the health centre.”
There have been small signs of progress. With support from the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, the village now has proper pit latrines. Electricity, too, has arrived.
But water, she insists, is different.
“We can survive without a modern road, but we cannot live without clean water,” she says.
For her, development is not about convenience. It is about survival – the urgent need for water that does not make people sick.