Celebrating Basotho New Year (Selemo sa Basotho) by Katleho Mpopo

The Annual Celebration of Basotho New year (Selemo sa Basotho and The Molutsoana Celebration)
  by Katleho Mpopo

The Basotho people hold the Molutsoana Celebration (prayer for rain and peace) to mark the commencement of the ancient Basotho calendar which begins in August (Phato), immediately after the last days of winter. The month of Phato is characterised by blowing winds; clearing of the land, cultivation of the fields and preparation of the new crops; spring birds like Tsoere, Mamotintinyane and Ts’emeli arrive, and so we say, “Let there be Life!”

The Basotho New Year Celebration is one of prayer 

Two villages across the Basotho Kingdom host this spring-time celebration in which a group of girls and newlywed women from one village come together and visit second village. Upon their arrival, one girl from the visiting group approaches a house nearby and asks for water. Instead of drinking the water, she mischievously snatches the Lesokoana (a stick used in cooking papa- a mixture of water and maize meal) and scrambles full speed to her fellow village sisters waiting on the outskirts. The family from which she took Lesokoana now calls upon all their village girls to give chase to the “thieving” girl. 

The visiting team runs with the Lesokoana to their village while the home team chases after them hoping to retrieve the stick. If they catch the person holding the Lesokoana, they take it from her before she can throw it to her own village members. When they retrieve it, they return to their village and present the stick to their chief (to show that they brought back what had been taken from them), then the home village chief announces “Khotso Pula Nalla!” This rings in  the beginning of a celebration, with traditional food like Likhobe, Nyekoe, and Sekele. There is dancing: Mokhibo (done by older women) and Ndhlamo (young men of the village).

However, if the visiting team gets to their village and presents the “stolen” Lesokoana, then their chief hoists the stick high above his head for all to see and declares “Khotso Pula Nala!!” (Let there be Peace, Rain and Abundance!).  Either way, the Basotho New Year Celebration will begin and eventually all the ladies from both villages gather at the outskirts where the prayer games begin.

This is a prayer to keep peace between village and asking the creator to provide rain that will nourish the plants and the soil, fill the streams with fresh waters for drinking. We pray for peace between villages, pray for lavishing green to cover the land throughout the kingdom hence enough food for Basotho’s livestock.

Khotso Pula Nala (Peace, Rain, Abundance) hence the colours 

on our flag  (Blue= Water, White= Peace, Green= Abundance)

Khotso Pula Nala in your lives!
Happy New Year.
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Perspectives From The African Diaspora: Know Thyself by Katleho Mpopo

While standing outside my friend's home waiting for her come out, I looked down and after a few seconds I saw a new world- a world of ants and other small insects. If I hadn't been concentrating, I would have taken it as a non-consequential world; it required focus to see it. There, among the bustling ants was one so small, probably a worker, dragging a sand grain twice its size. What caught my attention was the number of grains reduced by one every time one of these tiny workers snatched one up. Someone may argue that one less grain of sand is hardly a change, but that depends on one’s perspective. The bottom line was there was a change, no matter how small; there still was a change. 

It came down on me; we meet people; we hear things, speak and act on things, it does not matter how small they may be; they bring about change, we may not even realize it but the change is there.

When I walk every day, I see people and know each person is a soul striving for fulfillment. Some of us look for it in the wrong places; we seek it in what people say about us, we search for it in what people declare as "perfect". But this validation is really someone else's idea of perfection, and because most of us don't even know ourselves, we rush in every direction they tell us, to satisfy our souls' ultimate need. 

  

I live in a society that affects our subconscience. We are made to believe we aren't enough and that we need to talk, dress, and act, look a certain way; and then, we will be perfect. As a result, we do not realize that we each were born with something unique about us. But society is sabotaging us. We look for ourselves in material things; we look for our worth in the number of followers we have, as cliché as it may be. These things that surround us are dragging off the sand grains in our lives hence changing our own views and beliefs, self-love, self-respect, and self-worth. As long as we don't know who we are, where we come from, what our purpose is and where our purpose drives us, we cannot find contentment in this world.

My grandmother raised me. That woman radiated respect, gracefulness, and wisdom without having to raise a hand. I asked her this one time, how she could command such respect and her answer was simple. She told me she knew herself in and out, and no one would ever intimidate her nor would she ever seek validation from anyone. I did not understand it back then but I do now.
  

Being raised by such a woman propelled me to seek solitude. yet growing up and crossing paths with so many people, I've learned  that although we are all different, we seek the same thing which is soul satisfaction. My grandmother found that in herself. We need to find ourselves and understand who we truly are. 

Yes, life is hard and things happen that force us to ask ourselves questions that can shake the foundation of who we believe ourselves to be; the responsibility we have is to learn and improve, always. Outside forces like the media, in all its glory,  tell us what we should be; but we need to know who we are and build strong unshakable foundations of ourselves. So our souls won't gradually reduce, speck by speck, like grains of sand carried off by ants.

Katleho Mpopo is a 22-year-old student at the National University of Lesotho, in Roma, Lesotho, where she studies Economics. 

Katleho grew up in rural Khukune, which is in the Butha-Buthe District. Her grandmother raised her, "along with my 13 other cousins, aunts and uncles while our parents went about finding work." 

When this young Sister realized that in her community, the only affordable food offered by the food industry is junk food, Katleho began plans to offer health and wellness food. "Basically, we consume a lot of junk food just because it is cheap, cheaper than healthy food. That's also why I am studying Economics at NUL; so I get to understand how the company can be competitive, how it can survive and thrive even in times of recession."