Collector's Item

I have kept this tie tack trinket because it is so absurd, visually equating the flags of the USA and Lesotho, as if the two were in any way equal. It was distributed by the U.S. Information Service, the propaganda branch of the State Department. USIS operated a radio channel called Voice of America, a printing office, a movie-making outfit, and the Fulbright program, which is how I got to Lesotho. The flag of Lesotho was re-designed in 2006 with horizontal rather than diagonal lines, so this gimcrack handed out in 1993 memorializes the old flag. I photographed it today because yesterday I was contacted through Facebook by the grandson of my dear friend M’e Mpho Nthunya (author of Singing Away the Hunger) who died in 2013. 

I helped her tell her story, published in South Africa in 1996 and in the UK and the USA in 1997. Somewhat miraculously, the book is still in print in the USA, still being sold, read, and occasionally used in college courses in African Studies and Womens Studies, but the family has seen no royalties since a few years before M’e Mpho’s death. M'e Mpho's sons all died before she did, and her only daughter lives with her son Mahamo. He was supporting his son and his younger brother as an Uber driver in Johannesburg, but he was laid off with all the other Uber drivers when the Covid-19 lockdown came. They hope I can help them discover what is being done with her royalties.

The deal I negotiated with the publishers gave her 100% of the royalties, and those should now be going to Mahamo's mom. We have reached the current head of the South African press that first published the book. She tells us she’s working from home and doesn’t have access to the files right now, but she will let us know. Extra: the photo Mahamo sent me of himself. I last saw him when he was a teenager, and I'm stunned to see how handsome he has become, and how much he resembles his grandmother.