“S’moko Feela!” the first radio drama series of its kind in Lesotho aired the pilot season on 28th October 2012. S’moko Feela!” is an 18 episode season, made up of 15 minute episodes and plays every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; the drama is broadcast on 2 local radio stations, (radio Lesotho and PC fm). The story follows three main transactional characters who represent three of the four groupings for the target audience under the Letlama project; namely Puleng (female 18-24yrs), Neo (female 25-35yrs) and Teboho (male 25-35yrs). Although we do not in this season have as a main character the young men 18- 24yrs group, we have a character (Sello) who represents that age bracket. Below is a very brief description of our characters and storyline:
First, we have Puleng who is a savvy sassy, miss thing! She’s a second year tertiary student, who is all about enjoying herself and living the glam life! She is in a relationship with her minister of entertainment (older and married partner) but meets this really awesome guy, who is a law student at another university and falls head over heels! She is a very fun loving, sweet girl who doesn’t always make the best choices, and is sometimes very impulsive. We hope to see her achieve as time goes by and her story unfolds is for her to learn condom negotiation skills and become a correct and consistent condom user with all her sexual partners!
Second, we have Neo, who is a wife and mother of two adorable boys! For Neo her family is the most important thing to her. Her universe revolves around taking care of her boys, providing them with a better life than she had. Her marriage is a bit tumultuous at the moment; she and her husband do not communicate well, and he constantly puts her down which greatly impacts her self esteem! To make a bad situation worse, Neo finds herself in an affair with her childhood boyfriend, “Teboho” with whom she had a child out of wedlock! She has to somehow get to that place where she is making the right choices for herself and her family. We hope to see her grow stronger and attain some self esteem, as well as deal with her prejudice against people living with HIV as she gains knowledge and understanding, and empathy.
Third, but not least we have Teboho, who is a man’s man. He is basically a good, friendly guy, who gets along with most people. He is a staunch family man. For him providing for his family which includes his wife, two daughters, mother, siblings and branches of the family that are closely related is the most valuable thing to him. He is the man who will work hard to support and provide for his family; but he still knows how to have fun and really enjoys hanging out with the guys at the bar, or even playing on the village old stock football team! He’s basically a dependable team player. Teboho’s dilemma among other things is that his peers are a bit influential in his life. Their perceptions of him are somewhat important to him, as such we see him often placing himself at risk and misbehaving! He has several affairs, one of which is with Libuseng, a young vivacious hot thing, which was sort of a competition with his boy to see whose got game and would get her! He has an on again off again affair with Neo, who was his childhood sweetheart, and with whom he has a child out of wedlock. But he is very clear that he does not wish to jeopardise his marriage and he really loves his wife, even though he misbehaves. He has a lot of family drama he has to deal with the death of his older brother from a suspicious illness, a death that may be HIV related but one that is not openly spoken of. We hope that as time goes and he grows, we will see him get to a stage where he tests for HIV as he realises that it is acceptable and important aspect of his continuing to be a dependable provider for his family.
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