The child mothers of Tsodilo

Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday January 22, 2024 08:44

Having had no privilege to visit Tsodilo village where the famous Tsodilo Hills lie, I only knew a few things about the World Heritage Site, but little about the community.

Basarwa and Baherero tribes reside in the village, situated a stone’s throw away from the Hills. With one of the highest concentrations of rock art in the world, an estimated 4,500 in an area of only 10 kilometres in the Kalahari Desert, Tsodilo has been called the ‘’Louvre of the Desert’’.

As a tourist attraction, one would think that the residents through their Trust make a lot of money and their lives should be above the average rural Motswana. However, that could not be further from the reality many villagers face on a daily basis.

For me, it was heart-breaking to see the Tsodilo community, more especially the San who seem to be dominant in the village, living in abject poverty. Most of the residents work at ‘Ipelegeng,’ a government’s seasonal poverty relief programme that involves menial labour.

The youth in the village compete with their parents for slots in Ipelegeng and people take turns working for the programme each month.

As bad as the situation was, I did not expect that I would see young girls who should be fed and taken care of by adults, actually walking around with children of their own! These were girls as young as 14 and 15 years old.

Most of their children walked and played around naked, something that again surprised me. When I asked parents why they did not dress their children, I was told it was a ‘normal’ thing in the area.

The living standards of many households were appalling. Imagine a family of more than 10 or 20 people living in a room or two. Only a few have houses built with bricks, plastered and painted. The majority live in houses made of straws and others still reside in mud huts.

During the day everything seemed normal, as most of the young mothers were having fun with their age-mates around the village. Things took a different turn in the evening at a soccer tournament where nearly the whole village, if not all, pitched up to cheer their favourite teams.

The same young girls I had seen earlier came all dressed up, with make-up and lipstick on. I was dumbfounded. Even the way they conducted themselves, one could see they were already into dating. Most of them went to the game with their babies.

I asked a person sitting next to me, who was familiar with the village, what was driving the phenomenon of child mothers in the village.

“Those children are theirs and it’s their custom to carry them everywhere, even to drinking spots,” the villager told me.

“Some of the kids had children with people who visited the village or even some officers posted to work here.

Others dated their age-mates and even older men.”

In fact, I was informed that some of the men posted to work at Tsodilo are responsible for many children with different Basarwa girls. Apparently, many men take advantage of those young girls’ living and financial conditions, which is outrageous.

Being a mother myself, I cannot imagine how I would feel if I had a daughter who would be taken advantage of and impregnated at a tender age when she should be focusing on her education and playing with her peers.

The saddest thing about the situation is that those child mothers and their parents know nothing about the law and how it works. They didn’t seem to know about crimes such as defilement, rape or even incest. They seemed to be living in their own world and I wondered what the root cause of this was. The village’s tribe appeared to be a forgotten people, living in ignorance and at the mercy of abuse.

Youths in the area told me there is a lack of jobs and development, which tempts many to engage in social ills. Loritta Motlhaba (25) said young people in Tsodilo find themselves engaging in social ills such as alcohol abuse and early sexual activities due to lack of jobs and developments.

“Most jobs are posted online and here in Tsodilo we do not have access to the Internet,” she said, adding:

“We, therefore, see posts very late.

“Lack of transport is also a barrier because whenever we get job interviews we end up missing them because of lack of transport. No one wants to drive here because of the bad roads and we can spend two days trying to hike with no car showing up until we give up.” Motlhaba said while many young girls try their best to extract themselves from poverty through education, a lot more give up after Junior Certificate Level.

“I made it to Form Five and I find it hard to move to the city. We need people who can guide us in order that we may progress in life like other young people from other villages across the country. That would reduce the cases of teenage pregnancy and unemployment,” she said.

Lawrence Moneelo (25) is one of those who did not get past Junior Certificate level, a decision he regrets.

He said he left school in Form 1, as his situation was unbearable because of poverty. Even buying toiletry was a luxury for many youths. Moneelo is desperate for a second chance, and hopes through that he will find a job and probably leave Tsodilo for greener pastures. “Teenage pregnancy is very high here and in most cases you will find that some of those girls are impregnated by their peers who cannot even take care of themselves,” he said.

“Our children are idle, with some of them working with us in Ipelegeng. I wish the government could do better to improve our living standards more especially for our young people.”

Living in the shadows of the world famous Hills, the people of Tsodilo hope that their lives will one day transform for the better.