A RIDE WITH THE RIDERS FOR HEALTH
When the only way to save lives is to ride a motorcycle.
Iexpected riding in Lesotho to be di cult, I’m a bit wobbly on dirt anyway and I’d also been warned the roads are more dangerous than the trails. What I didn’t expect was the battle with a recalcitrant Eeyore in 30-degree heat. But there is a rope tangled around the Suzuki’s engine bars and footpeg and attached to the end of the rope is a donkey that’s doing its best to run away. The lead rider has disappeared into the distance and the photographer’s truck is yet to catch up. It’s taking all my strength to hold the bike upright.
I’m following health worker Atlehang Seisa up the mountainside approach of an outreach site to get a feel for what it takes to reach these remote communities. And when I say following, I mean desperately trying to keep enough of his brake light in view to know he is still there (not that he uses his brake often). He’s been covering 100-125 miles of this terrain, daily, for six years, ensuring those living in the most remote parts of the country can be diagnosed and treated for illness and/or receive basic healthcare. He knows every rut, stone, drop and donkey around these parts.
The Riders for Health service matters a great deal to the people of Lesotho. The very sight of their motorcycles elicits smiles and waves from everyone, children running to the road, shouting and cheering.
Before we set out from the RFH base in the Berea District, motorcycling nurse and midwife Letlatsa Mokokoane tells me why the bikes are such a positive thing. ‘My area consists of 60 big villages and four are only accessible on foot or bike. Since we’ve had the bikes no one has died in my area.’ That’s staggering in a country with an average life expectancy of 58.
I unwind myself from the rope, apologise to Eeyore and carry on. It would be easy to fall behind, but we’re on the same Suzuki DR200 dirt bikes and so I put my faith in Atlehang’s judgement and press on. Safety is the name of the game as a crash could mean months out of action and no medical attention for hundreds of people.
Atlehang’s lines are clean and precise, fast but controlled. No momentum is ever wasted and meagre but su cient sips of fuel are fed to his carb, making me feel embarrassed about my glutenous right hand ham-fistedly revving my way out of trouble while clinging to his coat tails.
This latest tribulation is the last before we reach the health post. Atlehang visits this place monthly. A house has been cleared out and is now used as a drop-in centre for the inhabitants of small villages in the area, and for these scheduled visits there is a queue of 50 to 60 people. Patients need a variety of services from the diagnosis of illness, prescription and distribution of medicine, inoculation and antenatal check-ups.
‘I have always used a motorcycle to do my job, and I couldn’t continue without it,’ he says. ‘These communities are very di cult to reach, especially in the places we have been today. In fact, I was going to leave you here and ride over to the other side of the mountain where other vehicles cannot reach, but the weather is too bad now.’ Rain arrives like an aerial tidal wave in Lesotho and because the terrain is so steep and rocky, the water is corralled rapidly into arterial
‘Since we’ve had the bikes no one has died in my area’
stampedes. We watch as cliff faces turn to raging waterfalls and back within minutes. It’s treacherous here.
Riders for Health operate 167 motorcycles in Lesotho, ridden by health professionals and couriers employed by the local Ministry of Health and trained by the charity. In 2019/20 the charity has/will spend just over £80,000 supplying six new Suzuki DR200S, training, clothing, handsets and more. And there’s already a request for four extra bikes and training for ten new mechanics this year.
Lesotho is a small landlocked country, surrounded by South Africa. It’s known as the ‘Kingdom in the Clouds’ and it’s easy to see why. The whole country is above 1388 metres in altitude and the tallest peak is 3482m. The terrain is tough, steep, rocky and constantly shifting under the burden of biblical downpours.
Because of its location on a high plateau, resources and farming are scarce in Lesotho. The nation is heavily dependent on South Africa, but many rely on subsistence farming. The average annual income is around £6500. Workers looking for a better wage ventured across the border to work in the mines, but sadly while there contracted HIV, which in time they brought back to Lesotho.
We descend the mountain, hail stones bouncing all around us and come across a small stream we crossed on the way up. It has swelled into an impassable river. We wait for almost an hour for the water to subside enough to allow us to pass. Even the local ferry (a man who carries you across on his back for a fee) has to take a break.
‘Those people who can travel to get medication won’t be able to cross rivers like this when it is raining,’ says Atlehang. ‘That means no Antiretroviral drugs for HIV sufferers, no inoculations for children, no antenatal care for pregnant women. The motorbikes give us a chance to make it.’
HIV is a real problem here. A quarter of the 2.2 million people in Lesotho carry the virus, the second highest rate in the world, and it’s imperative that cases are diagnosed and treated quickly.
The incident with the donkey ends up being quite funny, but there are plenty of non-equine dangers lurking on Lesotho’s roads. Right of way is awarded to whoever blinks last and navigating junctions is playing chicken with three cars at once. And although the trac lights have a familiar red, amber and green sequence, many are set to a constant flashing red and are paid scant attention.
Riders for Health train their riders in road safety but there’s only so much you can prepare for and the stark reality that things can go wrong very quickly is made clear on day one when we receive word that a sample transporter, Ntsele Moima, had been involved in an accident. We visit him in hospital and find him in a full leg cast.
‘A girl stepped into the road and I swerved to avoid hitting her,’ he says. ‘A car was coming the other way and to avoid that I had to go into the ditch.’ His biggest concern is the condition of the bike.
Describing Lesotho’s beauty calls to mind every cliché in the Big Book of Clichés. Indeed, it is dicult not to swear in your helmet every time you round a bend or summit a climb. And it’s hard not to feel a pang of jealousy watching the Riders for Health pick their way through such awe-inspiring surroundings. Despite the seriousness of the work being done, there’s plenty to like about their job.
Riding with a select group of the Riders for Health team feels like being part of a well-meaning biker gang. The excitement is palpable as friends who normally ride in isolation get the chance to showcase their skills and laugh and poke fun at one another. And why not? The job they perform, every day, is serious. But, the simple act of riding a bike still brings therapeutic relief like it does for every motorcycle rider.
‘There’s only so much you can prepare for and the stark reality is things can go wrong very quickly’