The Underground Network
By Paul Tullis
On the eastern flank of the tiny constitutional monarchy of Lesotho, about 225 kilometers from Durban, South Africa, sits the village of Ha Mokoto. Its residents are eking out a living in a manner not dissimilar to how their ancestors eked out a living 200 years ago, when Basotho people, led by King Moshoeshoe I, fled to the mountains to escape colonial strife in what is today South Africa. They tend to livestock and grow corn and sorghum, a starchy grain similar to quinoa or bulgur that’s cooked in large pots and stirred with a long stick into a thick paste. Circular homes called rondavels are fashioned from a base of stones and mortar made out of dung and fine dirt harvested from termite mounds and topped with a conical roof of grass supported by beams from poplar trees.
