Mourning a Mosotho

As I returned from my trip to Maseru a few weeks ago, one of my favorite grandmothers and neighbor came out to greet me. She immediately told me that “Ntate Mooli, o hlokahetse.” This translates to Ntate Mooli, he is gone but still needed. It is the local way of saying someone has passed away. Even as she told me that this wonderfully welcoming old man and neighbor of mine had died in my absence, a parade of boys and men were carrying things like a radio and television out of his widow's hut to store somewhere else.

Over the past two weeks, I did not see his widow once as culture dictates the widow sit idle on the floor in the house until the burial occurs. Neighbors, friends, and other family members do everything for the widow. As a result, I saw many other women outside her hut; cooking, washing, and just visiting.

This past Thursday morning, the burial preparations began in earnest. Early in the morning, over thirty village men gathered to cut trees for all the cooking over the next few days. They rigged a tent over the unfinished house to provide shelter for people cooking as it could not be done in the hut. The women gathered to start cooking for the next few days. When the body was brought from the mortuary, its sealed casket was placed in the hut and the men headed down to dig the grave. Next they put up a tent in the family's yard for the funeral service.

Friday, preparations continued throughout the day. Before dusk, those close to the family joined them for tebelo. Tebelo is an overnight gathering that allows people to share all kinds of thoughts and memories about the deceased. It is the designated time to discuss topics like how the person died and other tough subjects that might cause tears. It goes on until dawn.

The bull was slaughtered at dawn and its meet immediately
used in cooking and feeding people. 

At dawn on Saturday, the men slaughter a cow—a bull if the deceased is male, a heifer if the deceased is female. The meat is used for the funeral meal. Depending on the clan (The Basotho are comprised of a number of clans. My village is mostly the Basia or cat clan), the cow's skin is used differently. Some clans place it over the casket before the dirt to keep their loved one warm in the afterlife. Some treat the hide then place it over the grave later in time. And others treat it then use it in other family ceremonies.

The women immediately begin cooking both a meal for folks there before the service and for the funeral meal. Someone is sent to tell the chief what time the funeral will begin. In this case, Ntate Moojane came by while I was outside with our chief trying to learn what time I should go. He said the funeral would begin at 10, leaving my only thirty minutes to bath and get ready. Thankfully, this is Africa and I did not need to rush.

The women cook the funeral meal (and many other meals)
outside on open fires in large cast iron cookware. When there
is a funeral or party, neighbors share their cookpots

I arrived a little after 10:30 and immediately knew I was too early. I was the only woman already dressed in my Seshoeshoe dress. The women insisted I sit down. They brought me papa, beef, and then motoho (sorghum porridge).

An hour later, I moved to the tent where I was adopted by the Catholic “choir,” most of whom I know from both church and the village. Thankfully, this also meant I knew more than half of the songs we ended up singing so I was not dead-weight as an honorary choir member!

The funeral began with the choir becoming a singing procession from the tent to the hut housing the casket, widow, and her closest family and friends. We followed the two priests, who entered to pray over the casket before sprinkling it with holy water. We filled the tiny hut. After the prayer, we stepped out and lined the path so the casket could be brought through then we continued singing as we followed it back to the tent.

First was the Catholic service then the more traditional accolades and speeches from friends, village officials, and family members. Songs were sung in between each speaker. After three hours, it was time for the burial. Men from the family carried the casket from the family's home to the burial plot, nearly a quarter mile away and down a rugged hillside. The entirety of those in attendance followed; over 150 people by this time.

At the gravesite, those men and boys related to the deceased first place a shovelful of dirt on the grave. The order is set as oldest family to youngest family, however, within each family the youngest goes first and the oldest goes last. After the ceremonial shovels, any and all men and boys add dirt while the women continue singing. Gradually people peel off and return to the house. As they return, each washed their hands in a basin of water. Those that are Christian wash in plain water while the rest wash in water that has chunks of aloe cut into it.

Those of us in the choir bypassed all the basins when we returned, instead walking back into the hut where the widow had resumed her seat on the floor. We prayed for her then returned to the basins to wash. After that we ate the meal, including beef from the cow slaughtered at dawn. Once done eating and visiting, we drifted back to our homes.

On Sunday, the family gathers again to put on mourning or ho roala thapo. Ho roala thapo varies by clan, but it always includes the family kneeling on an animal hide and the cutting of hair. In some clans it is only a patch of hair, in others the entire head is shaved. As with the shoveling of dirt at the gravesite, the older families go first but within each family the order is youngest to oldest.

While in mourning, family members are expected to spend a lot of time at home and to be quieter than usual. After a month or more (depending again on clan), the family regathers to remove mourning or ho rola thapo. This begins with the slaughtering of a sheep. The undigested last meal of the sheep is removed. A small portion is smeared on each article of clothing belonging to the deceased. These clothes are then given out to the family members.

For most of the family, life returns to normal after ho rola thapo. For the female next of kin—be it a widow, mother, or sister—however, the grieving continues until winter arrives. During this time, she stays home, does not raise her voice, and does little to no work depending on the availability of others to complete necessary tasks.

When winter arrives, she returns to her original place (as a married woman, she lives in the village of her husband's family). Once there, a sheep is slaughtered. The bile from the sheep is mixed with water. The woman is shaved of hair and then washed with the mixture by her mother or another elder female in order to remove the curse of death from her family. After she is washed, her family puts her in new cloths. When she returns to her village, she leaves behind the clothes she arrived in as well as all the restrictions of mourning. 

PCV Profile: Tracy

Meet Superwoman...I mean Tracy. She made
this cape out of an umbrella she found
abandoned on the side of the road.

Tracy was the very first person I met when I landed in Philadelphia for Peace Corps staging last June. As I hopped on the shuttle to the hotel, I saw two women. One was clearly a business woman and not part of our group. The other turned out to be Tracy.

We formed an instant connection not only because we were bound for Lesotho together and part of the Greater Than Average demographic but because she has once sailed aboard the Mary Day as a guest when my great friend Sara was chief mate. This was clearly a woman after adventures and ready to do whatever it takes to make such adventures happen!

Tracy is from the Midwest. She is a mother to three boys, all of whom are currently serving in the US military. She is a gifted and energetic educator, having spent most of her career as a school librarian. She is a baker extraordinaire. It is impossible to have a Peace Corps workshop with her without enjoying some sort of delicious treat. I can only imagine the things she would be whipping up with more than a two burner gas stove!

Tracy, me, and two other PCVs atop Thaba Bosiu during PST.

Sadly, Tracy and I live fairly far apart. She is south of the capital city, in the district of Mafateng. Although she predominantly works with the Healthy Boithatelo Youth Organization, she has found and created a million connections within her district and between outside entities and her district. She is a resource and role model for other PCVs in this area. Whether it is getting bikes to teach women and girls, getting books to start a small children's library out of her house, or trying to get two inflatable kayaks donated to teach people the joys of boating safely; she is always looking for ways to bring new and valuable experiences to her community.

While most of the volunteers in our group are only just beginning to work on major projects, Tracy's project is in full swing. She is working with the women in her organization to create a sewing business. Ultimately, they hope to turn a building into their sewing headquarters/children's library. They were able to get donations to buy a handful of hand-crank sewing machines as they do not have electricity.

Tracy guided the women towards making unique items. There are many skilled tailors in Lesotho who create beautiful clothing out of Seshoeshoe, leftover food bags, and other materials. Rather then competing with these experienced dressmakers, she encouraged the women to consider making smaller, easier items. Now they are pumping out sewn bags, bracelets, and aprons in a variety of colorful fabrics. Not only are we PCVs gobbling them up, but the Basotho that see their handiwork are always impressed.

With more than 16 months left of service, I can only imagine the level of sustainability this project with achieve and the additional things Tracy will accomplish!

Although the women are less excited
to make the aprons out of Maizemeal
bags, they have quickly become a
favorite of PCVs!

Maseru

I spent last week in Maseru. This marked the first time since I entered the country ten months ago that I stayed overnight in our capital city.

As PCVs, we are heavily discouraged from spending time in Maseru. It is considered the most dangerous part of Lesotho, although many volunteers say that Maputsoe-an industrial city I pass through when traveling between Butha Buthe and nearly anywhere else in the country-is more dangerous. Regardless of popular opinion, Maseru comes with warnings from Peace Corps and from the US State Department.

Additionally, the political unrest that occurred in August and September and the elections in February, Peace Corps briefly prevented us from traveling through Maseru without special permission from the Country Director. Exceptions were made for those who needed to see the PCMO [Peace Corps Medical Officer].

Sidenote: Having been here for ten months without a visit to PCMO is pretty stunning. Other than the many vaccinations we have received and my one emergency-room worthy injury, I have been incredibly healthy here in Lesotho; more healthy that in America! This amuses me because I had been so anxiety riddled about medical clearance only to have the medical office tell me last week that I am one of the healthiest volunteers in country!

So this visit to Maseru had nothing to do with medical issues or thankfully the safety and security issues that also bring volunteers to the Peace Corps office. Instead, this was for training. I, along with five other PCVs, was chosen to come to the office to help design Pre-Service Training for the incoming Healthy Youth volunteers.

The six of us, along with Peace Corps staff, spent the week analyzing various training sessions from Peace Corps Headquarters. While many of us felt training was long and thorough while going through it; it was surprisingly difficult to fit the many important topics into the ten week schedule. We were mostly focused on the sessions that apply to the Healthy Youth framework and completing our work as PCVs. There are a number of required medical and safety sessions that help to fill the schedule.

Working with this team to design training was rewarding. Training has always been a highlight of mine, whether on ships, at school, in the woods, or in Lesotho. I am excited to bring my experience leading trainings with Spirit of South Carolina and Camp Pendalouan to Peace Corps.

It was also great to work alongside volunteers and staff I do not see often. I am realizing that one of the challenges of Peace Corps is that I work “with” a number of truly remarkable people, however, each of us is geographically isolated. Rarely do we have the opportunity to work together and even more rarely does that collaboration occur in person after PST. I had therefore forgotten how inspiring it can be to work alongside my peers and supervisors.

Being in Maseru for the week did have its negatives. Two volunteers had been mugged in the previous few weeks, one in Maseru during daylight in a high traffic area. It is sobering to see peers targeted for crime because of their presumed wealth.

Also, life in Maseru is expensive. With little effort, it would be easy to spend the entire month's stipend on food and taxis in one week. While Peace Corps will reimburse some of these expenses (taxis in Maseru are considered a safety expense), it was startling to realize how quickly I was spending my living allowance. Our group was frugal, cooking at least one meal for ourselves each day, but even simple street food was twice as expensive in the capital as my own camp town.

This was also the first time I recognized how different life in my village is from life in America. Between the television at the guest house being on during breakfast, riding in cars regularly, being able to buy the supplies for and then bake lasagna, light switches and showers, I was surrounded by things that made me feel like I had returned to amenities similar to but not quite like America. For the first time in my service, I missed life in America.

I found it fascinating that when living my lovely and simple village life with basins for bathing, solar panels to charge my phone, and a small two burner gas stove for cooking, I do not miss life in America. And, until the week in Maseru, I did not recognize the profound differences between this life and that I live when in my own country. Perhaps it is these dramatic differences, the lack of parallels between the two places, that prevents me from missing home.

Then again, perhaps it is simply that I am so filled with joy and peace in my village that the capacity for missing a place known for its hectic life is nonexistent. And perhaps, it is that Maseru is a city, busy in its own way and therefore not peaceful, that allows me to miss aspects of home.   

Regardless, returning home to my hut, my host brothers, and my villagers brought back my delight in living and working in Lesotho while also making me incredibly grateful that I was placed in my rural hamlet! 

Mokete ea Temo: Celebrity Style

Remember that party I went to a few weeks back to celebrate the agricultural successes my community has had this year? The one I wrote about in Mokete ea Temo?

Apparently, the video recording was not just for the Ministry of Agriculture but was also broadcast on the Lesotho television channel. At least that it was Ntate Thabo, the videographer, told me when I bumped into him at the LASTC Cultural Day.

And the pictures that were taken were also shared at large. For a few weeks, my usually white-person, PCV celebrity status increased as people I did not know approached me not to say hello but to tell me they had seen me in the newspaper. Even the ladies at the grocery store in town have been excited to tell me they saw me in the paper!

I do not have television or get newspapers, so I was unaware of my increased celebrity status. A local shopkeeper had a copy of the newspaper, so I now have my photo straight out of a Lesotho newspaper! I will admit that I am grateful my name was not mentioned in the article!

Page 10 of  Informative with 'M'e Lerato, the woman mentioned frequently in the article.

Workshop Woe

My journal entry from Monday:

Today this week was incredibly challenging, in all likelihood the toughest day I have had in Lesotho yet. It was the day of our mini-PDM workshop. It was going to be long and difficult no matter what.

Then I learned this morning that Ausi Mareisi, my counterpart, had to work...but, 'M'e Mamphatsoe saud someone was calling her supervisor to get her the time off to join me in co-leading the workshop as planned. Despite this reassurance, I could not help but be anxious.

This was my nightmare. The very idea of doing the workshop effectively with people who speak no English, using only my decent but inadequate Sesotho skills has literally been my worst case scenario for the last month. It was a concept so awful I tried not to consider it a possibility at all.

It turns out that Ausi Mareisi could not leave her other job as her supervisor had disappeared. My worst case scenario was now my reality. Rescheduling was not possible as we had chairs, supplies, and meals provided by WorldVision. I wanted to laugh or to cry.

I wanted to cry. I wanted a magical ability to speak and hear Sesotho fluently for a day. I wanted to have been assigned an organization full of English speakers, like more of my PCV peers. Part of me even wanted to quit or at least to hide in my house and ignore this reality.

By I did not join Peace Corps to quit or hide in my house, I joined for challenges and new experiences; to fully immerse myself in another country. And, the reality is, nothing I have done thus far in Peace Corps would be new or challenging without the language difference.

So, I took a deep breath, or five. I apologized to the nearly twenty people present for speaking Sesotho poorly, and I started the workshop.

We worked within my language abilities until my supervisor and another leader in the organization arrived. I let them know that Ausi Mareisi would not make it and they promptly suggested I walk across the street to ask my friend to close his shop so he could help with translations when needed.

Lucky for me, Abuti Sama is in fact a good friend and he was willing to do just that. Unlike Ausi Mareisi, he had never seen the material we were covering let alone attended an entire training on it, so I really challenged him with my translation requests. Often times, while he tried to figure out a way to say the complex things I threw at him, I came up with easier explanations that I could manage in Sesotho. Then, I would use him to confirm what I said made sense.

In the seven-hour workshop, we did not get nearly as much completed as we had ambitiously planned, but we reached a unanimous conclusion to pursue an income generating project of egg-laying chickens and to hopefully reinvigorate the previously successful Vaseline project. Both of these meet with the outcome of the Needs Assessment Ausi Mareisi and I previously completed. The egg project has the benefit of also increasing food security in our communities, a second need brought forth in the Needs Assessment.

Despite wanting to both laugh and cry many times throughout the day, I cannot call it anything but a success. I managed to go far beyond the language abilities I recognize within myself, expressing hard topics in ways that everyone understood. We shared an incredibly camaraderie throughout the day, being playful with the language in ways I would not have understood or joined a few months ago. Bo-'M'e all agreed upon a project, which was completely unexpected. And, I had the excellent reminder that people want to see my work here succeed and are willing to stop everything to help.

It is pretty great to not only meet a challenge, but also be forced to recognize how many people are there to support me when I think I am going to have to deal with something on my own.

MCCC’s Egg Laying Chicken Project has been in development since March 2015. After many delays, MCCC and I were able to write a successful grant proposal for a VAST grant through Peace Corps. VAST grants are funded by PEPFAR to help with HIV-related work and OVC (Orphan and Vulnerable Children) care. It is due to MCCC’s work with OCVs that qualified us for the VAST grant. Otherwise, we would have applied for a PCPP [Peace Corps Partnership Program] grant and would have been asking for assistance in funding this grant proposal. I encourage you to consider supporting other PCPP projects.

Posts about this project include:

Workshop Woe, Busiest of Birthdays, Checking Out Chickens, A Day with Bo-’M’e, Chicken Coop Construction Day One, Day Two, Day, Three, Day Four, Day Five