Happenings during my last three weeks in Morija

• Ntate Pakalitha who works at a nearby spaza shop played the accordion for a couple hours under a tree outside our home in Morija while another ntate sang lifela (travel tales) with him for some of that time. Chris and I enjoyed his music while we read and drank tea outside.
• My best friend from Qacha's Nek threw me a party in Maseru where she lives now. I love Basotho parties because there is guaranteed to be a lot of dancing - and probably a braai (BBQ). We drank a lot of beer and blared hip-hop and house music until 4am. Then the next night when I was hoping to catch up on my sleep, a "corporate function" was held at the guest house where we stay. The "corporate function" turned into an all-night rager of a party with loud music and loud, obnoxious drunks surrounding our house. Chris and I barely slept, and I got a taste of my own medicine after being the loud drunk the night before.
• It's the rainy season here in Lesotho which means we get fantastic lightning storms. One night, we had a braai at our place with friends despite the dark, heavy clouds hanging above us. We got lucky, and the rain held out for most of the night. During our braai, we could see a beautiful lightning storm in the distance that lit up the sky every few minutes.
• Someone very close to Chris and I in Qacha's Nek passed away recently, and we headed back to the mountains for the funeral - a sombre occasion. She wasn't even 30 years old. Outside of Lesotho, I've only had two people close to me die - two of my grandfathers. In Lesotho many people I know have died, and most were very young. There was my ausi's baby, my grandfather, my ausi's grandparents, a close cousin, my ausi's husband, and now this. On paper, the life expectancy in Lesotho is very low. In my experience, I know this to be true because of the many young deaths I regularly hear of.