Lesotho: Double orphans

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I am a boy aged 15 and both my parents died in the same year, but my mother died first in October and my father in November. It was a very difficult situation for me and I was still very young. I live at Ha-Ts’epo in Mohale’s Hoek in Lesotho. There are three of us in our family, my brother and my younger brother who is just eight years old now.

My parents worked very hard to see that we had a decent life, there were ups and downs in the family, but they were trying their best to provide properly for us. After their death things were not looking good for me and my younger brother because my older brother did not take care of us, we expected that from him because he was older than us and all the arrangements for my parents’ policies were made by him only. We did not know what our parents had left for us because we were very young and we did not care about all those things, but we wanted them to be around and be there for us, that is all we wanted as very young kids.

My life and my young brother’s life changed because our brother did not care of us, but he was very busy with something that we did not know about. When I tried to talk to him he was not keen to talk. I reported our situation to my grandparents and they tried to talk to him, but he was not interested. He was not paying our school fees and we would have been expelled from school yet our parents had left something for our education. What hurt the most is my younger brother because he still young, I am also young, but he is very young, he would cry when he saw the tension between us. My grandparents talked some sense into him and he finally changed and was there for us like a big brother should be. Little did we know that worse was still coming our way.

My uncle started so show some interest in us, if it was really interest, or it could be just that he wanted something; he came to the house every day and asked so many questions about our parents and what they had left for us. We did not know where he was really going with this. My brother just disappeared and we were left alone, me and my younger brother. We needed guidance and someone to take care of us; apparently it was to be my uncle. He was our guardian and he was the one who could withdraw our money from the bank, we were young and we did not have passports as we still do not have even now.

My uncle took all our money and used it and we did not know where it went and he sold my parents’ things. We were left with nothing and he did not care about us. We did not have money or anywhere to stay. I had to take care of my younger brother and I did not know what to do. The owner of the flat we rented kicked us out and we did not know what to do, he kicked us out because we were not able to pay rent as we did not have money. My other uncle accompanied me to the police station to report the matter, but the police did not help us at all. How can an old person who is supposed to look after us abuse us this way? I do not know what to say to my younger brother.

*Not his real name

This story is part of the “IÀ stories series produced by Gender Links News Service encouraging the view that speaking out can set you free