Christmas E Monate

Christmas in Lesotho is definitely different than in America, and I had a great time with my family here! While it may be during the summer, with no stories about Santa, it was a good day spent cooking and being with family.

We started the day decorating the sitting room in my host family's house, pictured left and below. It's tradition here for just the kids to get gifts, and they all really like their new shoes, pictured below on the left. After decorating, my host sister, Malehloa, and I made chakalaka. It's a veggie dish, and we cut carrots, onions, bell peppers, chilis, and cucumber into

long strips. It all gets cooked in a pot with spices and chili sauce. The result was very tasty! We then headed over to Alice's house, another sister, to have a braai, or barbeque/cookout. (There are 6 siblings in this family...I'm sure I'll get all the relations down eventually.)

Once we got to Alice's house, others were already there helping prepare. There was even a trampoline being put together! Naturally that's what I helped with first, and then I went to help with the grilling. We had marinated pork and chicken. The pork is pictured on the left, and Alice and I are pictured below on the right, of course doing all the grilling and not just posing for a photo :) Actually, there was a brother and an older nephew helping with the grilling. My sisters and I got some pictures in the meantime, and the kids were all jumping on the trampoline. That's about the most kids I've ever seen on a trampoline at one time!

Pictured above on the left is the final product of all the cooking. We had papa, chakalaka, pork, and chicken. I didn't have the chicken, but everything else was delicious! I ate Basotho style, with my hands. After eating, I got roped into jumping on the trampoline with some of the kids, and it was really fun. We got to watch a beautiful sunset too, which was very nice. Once it got dark, the stars were super bright too.

All in all, it was a very fun day. I'm grateful to be included in this family, and to get to learn about how a different culture celebrates Christmas. I hope everyone else's celebrations, for those who celebrate, were also filled with family and laughter! Christmas e monate!

Left: Malerato, a relative Right: Another sister, Maleshoane

Middle: My host sister, Malehloa