BaKgatla women ready for Friday's Bojale launch

The women taking part in the Bojale find themselves living two kinds of lives. During the day they talk on cell phones and work with their computers in their offices. They drive flashy cars dressed in Western fashions.  Once the day is over, activities back home in Mochudi switch back a hundred years. The hectic schedule of 'go rupa' or initiation, begins.

It is a different life completely. In the evening they must forget about those high heeled shoes, and jewelry and remain barefoot throughout the exercise. Their latest French garb is removed, and the initiates remain with only skirts, their upper body exposed to the biting winter cold nights as they walk  and run around the village singing ancient initiation songs.  They run arms folded, heads bowed, in the manner dictated by custom.