May 23, 2011

I came back from Maseru after a week of workshops in preparation for training the new volunteer arrivals on June 3rd. It was good to be back to my little rondavel in Tabola, good to hug my Tsoene Mathata again, good to see my Basotho family! Ausi Mathabo spent the week at my house in order to control my wild and crazy cat, Tsoene Mathata. He loves to go out at night and raise havoc all over Tabola. I was back home by Friday afternoon.



Saturday I went with the Ramoabis to the funeral of Ntate’s grandmother; she was over one hundred years when she passed. Ntate, being a deacon in the Roman Catholic church, was able to deliver the funeral service; I think it made him quite proud to lay his own grandma to rest…and he looked so eloquent presiding over the service! After she was buried, a huge feast was given in her honor…we ate a traditional meal of papa, moroho (cabbage), khomo (cow), motoho (pumpkin), beets and carrots. My family left before the rest of the village began their “traditional drinking of joala…home-made beer). As we were driving along, we came across an overturned taxi; much to my dismay, it looked just like the taxi we teachers ride to one of our schools, Renekeng. As we came closer, I saw Ntate Power, the owner of our taxi. I asked if he was okay, and he said yes…he also told us that there were no passengers in the taxi at the time of the accident…whew! To make a long story short, no one was hurt, but the taxi is gone forever! So, my longest walk to school, Renekeng, will now be a daily fact for all the teachers and me. It used to be a 1 and ½ hour walk, but we’ve actually shortened the time to about fifty minutes with shortcuts through maize fields, etc!! I guess I’ll stay fit for a while longer!!
On our walk to Renekeng this morning, we discussed a feast which we shall hold at Renekeng tomorrow/ it will be in celebration of ‘M’e Mapalesa’s life and all that is GOOD on the land which houses the Renekeng Primary School. As I had mentioned in an earlier blog entry, many of the teachers believe that the land is bewitched by an evil spirit because of the four teachers’ deaths in the past four years. In an attempt to rid the land of any evil that may be lurking, we have called for many priests and village chiefs to come and give their blessing to the land and us.
I truly believe that this WILL WORK because the teachers believe it. I feel that so long as they bring this positive energy to the feast, that energy will attract more positive energy and push out any negativity that’s been “hanging around”. I’ll try to take some pictures of the “exorcism” if it seems appropriate.