I remember riding by ntate Santu's house in a taxi last month. He had just returned from South Africa, where he tried to get medical help; he had been sickly for a while, thin, wheezing, I'd guess from tuberculosis. Still, he was tall and had long red- and white-beaded locks, making him look African regal. He was perhaps 45 years old.
"When are you going to come see me?" he heaved to me from his house.
"I'll visit you! You'll see me, I'll visit you!" I yelled out the taxi window.
But a visit to ntate Santu required considerable time. My Sesotho was slow, he was slow, he had a lot of questions about America, I had a lot of questions about Lesotho, he would always give me food. So in the whirlwind of trying to move out of my house, and see my girlfriend as much as possible before leaving the country, I never got around to stopping by.
A few days ago I wrote him a letter saying sorry for not seeing him one more time before leaving Lesotho and thanking him for teaching me so much over the years. "I'll definitely visit you first when I return to Lesotho next," I finished.
Ntate Santu was the owner of our village's initiation school and also the main 'ngaka', or witchdoctor, in the area. He accepted me from day one; on the day I arrived three years ago in Ts'oeneng he invited me into his house and fed me goat meat. When some American friends were visiting we popped in and he sent us home with a cow's leg. He let me ride his horse. He lent me music and books. He invited me to come learn to stick fight with the new initiates. I always considered him the most Sesotho of all my friends, he had so much to teach me, and now he's gone.
I was informed this morning that he died just before Christmas and he's already been buried. I leave Lesotho today. I can't believe I felt too busy to visit him. I don't feel that way now. People get caught by death in Lesotho too fast. Too fast.