Sunday 1 February 2009

Mokhotlong



I have been editing on Photoshelter most of the images I got last month in Lesotho, a small country landlocked by Southafrica established in 1824 as the mountain fortress for tribes united together against the attacking Zulu and now home to 2.2 million Basotho. I am at the same time trying to figure out how to present and put together the stories of the people of Mokhotlong for the Borders project. The original idea still is to portrait all faces of everyday life and death in a remote and isolated village with big hopes and challenges.
Volunteers working with organizations like Touching Tiny Lives told me about HIV positive orphans who contract the virus at birth or from breast-feeding. Other Ngo's like The Louis Gregory Foundation took me around the district to witness different activities organized for young people within the community to improve their education and awareness regarding AIDS.
Most of the stories in the project focus on children and women in one way or another because all Basotho women are considered legally the child of their husband, and must obtain their husband’s approval to have surgery, take contraceptives, take out a loan or run for public office. Other stories I am considering to introduce in the final multimedia presentation tackle the use of the traditional legal system in the tribunals, the investment of foreign companies in sheep factories, the arrival of chinese population to control through supermarkets the food and clothes trade and the development of the overwhelmed health system.