Grandmothers Day

October 23, 2008

Today was a planned grandmothers day in Hlotse in the yard outside the Help Lesotho offices.

The five of us spent a good portion of the day previous preparing for this day's events. We took delivery of food stuffs, repackaged as necessary, ensured that we had sufficient identical packages of food supplies for each attending grandmother. We were also involved in assisting with food preparation for the day, including cleaning and cooking chickens, vegetables, and the careful mixing of juices.

The grandmothers start arriving around 8 a.m. At 9 a.m. the program starts with songs and prayer and greetings to one another. Then we served juice and cookies to each of the 30+ grandmothers, after which they began their program that cover such topics as workshops around the issues they face, HIV/AIDS education, more songs, dancing, more prayers and story telling. At one point the grandmothers presented some handcrafted hats and placemats and baskets to Peg as a token of thanks for Help Lesotho's work to pull these days together every month.

Following these we helped serve lunch to the grandmothers. Personally, it was not a plateful of food that I would have thanked you for (chicken, pumpkin, papa, and some mystery greens), but the ladies were delighted and I think quite amused that they were being served by the white guests from Canada. Of course the menu seemed strange only to us, with our North American viepoints..

More programs on for the afternoon and then each grandmother received an approximately 10 kg pack of food to bring home that would last them several days. Some got cabs to their homes, others set  off on foot with the heavy packages in their arms.