The 29th of
August 2009. Life is never what you expect. So why should
death contain anything but the unexpected? You would think that after 2 years one would
become accustomed to the funerals and the death. In fact, the opposite is true.
Each time I visit a family, a friend, it compounds upon the pain of those
already lost. Each time someone dies the despair grows. Instead of creating a
feeling of numbness and separation, death begins to bring a sense of
desperation. But of course on the outside everything is business as usual.
My rondoval is in the
bottom of the Qomo-Qomo valley, and most of the village is located above me.
Every few days I make my rounds around the village to inspect projects, find
out any news, and look for new opportunities. I was on my up to the top of the
village where my widows run a solar bakery. As I made my way up, Ares and
Aegis, my faithful companions, darted up and down the mountain looking for
trouble, or maybe just a nice discarded bone to chew on.
It was coming to afternoon;
the sun would soon be behind our mountain leaving us with a few hours of shade
before darkness finally came. I noticed what appeared to be a pile of blankets
next to a mud hut, heaped in a pile and filthy. An old woman sat slowly
stirring a large black kettle and tending a small fire below it. She was
probably in her fifties, but looked much older. The environment and the hard
living here seem to make people age much more quickly. I greeted her in
accordance with custom, “Hello, mother. How are you living?”
“I’m living well,” she
replied, “and you father, how are you living?”
“Good, thank you,” I
said.
The pile of dirty
blankets suddenly began to stir, and I realized that someone had been hidden
underneath them. The blankets lifted, and for a brief moment my eyes made
contact with those that had been hidden. I could see naught but his eyes. They
peered inquisitively at me. They were dark, sunken, and sad. As quickly as they
had come, they disappeared. The blankets fell back into their crumpled, unmoving
state. I made my way up the hill to continue my business with the bakery, not
giving the eyes much more thought.
A few days later I
happened by the house again. This time there was a man sitting up next to the
house. Was it a man? Or just a shadow, a whisper. The blanket hung over his
shoulder now, his bare flesh exposed to the winter sun. He looked as though he
hadn’t eaten in months. Every bone in his body was visible and protruded
outwards, into the exterior, where they weren’t meant to be seen. His cheeks
were hollow and his hair was tangled and stood in clumps about his head. His
arm, was that his arm? It looked like that of a child. There was no muscle
visible, only bone. I greeted him, but he was too weak to respond or even to
change his expression. Aegis, Ares, and I continued on our way.
The next time I looked
at the house, I knew in an instant that death had finally taken him, the man
with sunken eyes. AIDS had claimed another life. Several cooking fires were
burning around the hut and an inordinate amount of people were gathered
outside. I checked my garden, as I have so many times before this year, to see
what I could bring to help the family.
I gathered four bunches
of potatoes, about twenty in all, and slowly made my way to the rondoval to pay
my respects. I had my meager offering of potatoes, but I have found that in a
land with no money and little food sometimes all that is to be done is to sit
with the family and share in their pain. As I approached the house I
customarily greeted those gathered outside. I asked where the man was, and they
pointed inside of the second of two rondovals. I gathered my thoughts, my
Sesotho, and my composure, took a deep breath, and stepped into the single
room.
Five women were sitting
on the dirt floor crying; in between the women hung a sheet covering the
deceased man. I hung my head and greeted them in a low soft voice. As we made
conversation they stopped crying. I asked about the man, when had he died, when
would the funeral be, and what arrangements had been made.
I told his mother I
wish I had made more of an effort to speak to him while he was alive. She then
told me about how much he had enjoyed seeing my dogs and me. She told me he was
absolutely convinced that my dogs were being fed bread and milk, luxury goods
here in the mountains, because they were so fat. She told me that during the
last 3 days, we were all he would talk about.
My heart broke. It tore
in pain and shame, my stomach churned as I realized what I had done. I had seen
the living Christ, and passed him by. I had looked deep into his sunken eyes,
eyes full of suffering and despair, and continued on my way. Could I not have
taken 10 minutes to sit and comfort him?
Could I not have stopped to care for him, to lift his spirits, and be
with him in his misery? No, I had passed him by.
After she finished
talking we all sat quietly and reflected. I got up and handed his mother my
potatoes. She was very thankful.
The next day the man’s
brothers arrived and forced a change of plans. The man had died on Wednesday
and it was now Saturday, our burial day in Lesotho. His brothers, however, were
adamant that he be taken back to his mountain village of Ha Lephoto. We don’t
have cars here, and if we did they couldn’t reach Ha Lephoto. The only way to
get to Ha Lephoto is by horse.
They brought saddled
horses, and prepared for the ride of the dead, the night ride. His brothers
picked him up and put him in his saddle, to ride one last time. We tied each
leg to a stirrup and tied ropes around his back, midsection, and arms, and
connected them to ropes attached to the stirrups. It took a while to secure him
tightly, and in the end he sat firmly in the saddle, but slouched over next to
his horse.
One of the men from the
village asked me, “Don’t you want to take a picture?”
I always carry my
camera, but wouldn’t normally bring it out at a time like this. “I have it,” I
said, “but I wasn’t going to take a picture. Won’t his family be angry?”
“No.” He said,“Please,
father Thabo. Show them how we live here. Show them how we live hard in
Lesotho.”
It takes an exceptional
amount of love to carry your brother’s rotting body home in the rain to be
buried. But when you are consumed in despair, death, and utter hopelessnessall
things are eventually stripped away. Two things remain and stand alone. God and
love.
People often ask me why
I do what I do. Those who knew me in my youth, ask how in the world I ended up
teaching chastity. I lived a lifetime of pain and sorrow. My friends, my
family, vanished before my eyes. It was the most gruesomely awful and astoundingly
wonderful experience of my life. I saw death. I smelled death. I lived death.
It tore out my heart, but it was only in death that I was able to find new
life. I felt my soul ripped into a thousand tiny pieces, but it was remade.In
the midst of our misery, our wretched grief, my heart sang with new life. When
He led me from darkness, I felt an unrivaled joy for life, and I had hope in my
fellow man. My name is NtateThabo Nohana, and this is my story.
*The culture of death
in Africa is often physically visible. Here in America, our suffering is so
often hidden. Let us remember all those who suffer. Let us remember that
however dark the night, Christ will always lead us into His light*
