Moroesi

We were best friends and age-mates, and she called me “my sisterrr,” emphasizing the American “r,” drawing it out playfully. She loved making fun of Americans, and I loved her wit, her good sense, and her ability to make me laugh till my sides ached. She was two months younger than I and more than a foot shorter, and her laugher rang like a chorus of bells. She met me at the airport when I arrived in Lesotho in 1992. She was working for the US Information Service, doing her job, meeting any arriving Fulbrighter, State Department emissary, or Peace Corps Volunteer, introducing them to her country. We saw each other and understood each other and in a matter of weeks we became friends.

Her mother had worked “in the kitchens” (a euphemism for domestic service in Lesotho), but Moroesi was gifted, extraordinary. She performed so well in school that friends and distant relatives pooled resources and sent her for university studies in, of all places, Cullowhee, North Carolina. Later we would reminisce about the mountains, about grits and biscuits, and less enjoyably about the racism that shocked her in the 60s. 

During the two years I lived in Lesotho we traveled and worked together. She became the administrator of the theatre program I ran; she helped me organize a writing workshop for women in the media; and we confided in each other. We were both forty-seven, we had been through relationship-hell and were single mothers, we’d had great promise as children but had run into massive obstacles as single women. We were both rebellious in our different ways, and we cheered each other on. She introduced me to the world of middle-class, educated African women, a group that is largely invisible internationally. When I moved to South Africa we were on the phone frequently, checking in. Cheering. Encouraging each other.

When I went back to Lesotho for a farewell visit in 2010, I spent my final days at her house. She drove me to the airport (her housekeeper made the photo of us just before we left, Extra) and we hugged for a long time, knowing we probably wouldn’t see each other again. Till a few months ago we exchanged emails, stories, and photos of our grandchildren frequently, but my last few emails to her went unanswered. I wasn’t worried. She often kept her grandchildren and our missives would lapse for a while and then start up again.

I heard this morning from her daughter and granddaughter that she died April 8th. A brain tumor. She had been suffering since a little before Christmas, and in her last days she asked them to let me know after she passed. The world is poorer without her. I am immobilized with grief.