Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Things Old and New


Today is the first day of 2013. It is the start of the first year of my life I will spend entirely on the African Continent. It is the start of something new. Today is also January 1st. It is a day I have experienced over 20 times in my life so today is also something old. Since I have returned to Lesotho I have experience new things and old things, things that remind me of my last year here, things that remind me of my Canadian home and things  that are completely new to me.

The Basotho community that I live in is a wonderful place where I am reminded of my last year and of my Canadian home. The church in our community is one place in particular that I have had many beautiful experiences and moments of feeling part of a community.  On Christmas Day we have a church service that starts sometime in the morning.  This year it rained Christmas morning so our service started even latter than usual, but this year I knew that rain meant church would start late. I was not surprised when I arrived a house at the time the service was supposed to begin and they were in the process of washing the communion dishes.  I arrived at church latter than some but earlier than others because I now know something of the rhythm of this community.  I found I enjoyed the service a lot more this year than last year. I am familiar with the liturgy, I know some of the songs, I understand what is happening.  This is a community I feel comfortable in, I am in the process of knowing and being known by a group of people and whenever I think about this it makes me smile.  The part of the service that made me feel the most connected was when we took communion.  We stood up in a large circle together.  Two elders served communion to us. One of them was my neighbour. As I looked around the circle I knew people. It was such a beautiful reminder to me that the Church is not limited to one place and my family is not limited to one group of people. Wherever I go and take part in a community there I can find the Church and there I can find family.  It was an experience of feeling connected and welcomed. It reminded me of the first sunday I was back in Maphutseng.  I was called to the front to greet everyone and so they could see that I was back. While I was standing at the front they started to sign a song for me. Then a few people started to stand up, walk by, and shake my hand.  And then everyone was standing up and making a line. Everyone from the small children to the old grandmothers walked by to greet me. I felt so welcomed, so wanted in the community, so connected, it was beautiful.

A greeting line after church
An experience that I have had that is completely new to me is moving into my own house. I have a 3 room house all to myself. I have been in the house less than I month but I am working on making it my own.  My landlady is my neighbour. We share the same property so she always knows what I am doing and I always know where she is going. In the picture my house is the large L shaped one and hers is the small rectangular one.  I have never lived all on my own before so I have been enjoying the new luxuries of moving furniture wherever I like, eating whenever and whatever I like and having a house to myself. There is a plateau right behind my house and I have decided to take a picture from the top once a month and watch how the village bellow me changes over the seasons. This is the first picture.

My house in the valley

And the last thing I wanted to share is something old that I miss that has been replaced by something new.  Each year our family has a tradition of making new years cookies, fried dough with raisins coated in icing sugar. This morning I was thinking about how I missed new years cookies when I looked at my counter and realized that I had makoenya left over. They are also called ‘fat cakes’ and they are deep fried dough that is sold in all the towns, wherever the mini buses stop.  They are not quite the same but they are very similar. So today I will continue old traditions in a new way and eat some fat cakes for lunch. Happy New Year!

No comments:

Post a Comment