Monday, November 19, 2007

Strange emotions

The past two weeks have been amazing! I defended my PhD thesis on Tuesday November 6th, 2007. Saturday the 10th my father died after having stroke for some 21 years. The last time I saw him was October 27th. We buried him November 17th in Mahalapye.

I was not very close to my dad. But it was such an amazing thing to hear his brothers and niece speak so eloquently about him. "He was a calm man under pressure" they said. They relaid tales of the rustic life of farming where upon beasts of burden entangled themselves with some leather cords how he calmly disentangled them and set them on their path. His musicality was highly celebrated, as a well-known accordion player in Lobatse. Speaker after speaker celebrated his love for good clothes. He was a good looking man, we were told.

We were told how some evil villagers, some witches and wizards, wanted to bewitch his father's kraal [to make his father's cows disappear through witchcraft] and upon recognising these evil messages in the kraal he assailed them , dragged them, yanking them a few centimeters off the ground into his father's yard. Some of these men walk the streets of Mahalapye mad even up to this day! Who wouldn't want a father like that. But I heard all this about him days after his death.

So I have had extreme emotions.... But God has been with me in such an amazing way...