Goodbye girls!

MATELILE – A STUDENT and classmate to some. A dependable rugby teammate to others and a friend to many. These were some of the tributes that poured as multitudes gathered to pay their last respects on Saturday to Thato Mohai, an 18-year-old taken in her prime in a car accident recently.
The accident happened near Botshabelo on the way to Bloemfontein where the girls were going to play a league match with Mangaung Rugby Club three weeks ago.
Four other teammates also perished in the accident.

Thato’s mother ’Mamokete, like most mourners, wept. She sat on a mattress beside the coffin in a melancholic posture as speaker after speaker spoke glowingly of her daughter.
Thato was a defender at the Mabote Beavers Rugby Team.
The founder of Mabote Beavers, who is also the vice-president of Federation of Lesotho Rugby (FLR), Letsielo Mabitle, said he was driving the car when the accident happened.
Narrating the details of the accident, he said they ended up taking a 4×4 twin-cab for transport to Bloemfontein instead of a pre-arranged 15-seater Toyota Quantum.

Mabitle said they knew about the game in Bloemfontein for a while and they prepared transport logistics to take the players there. However, the minibus was hijacked at gunpoint a day before the trip in Heilbronn, Free State.
He said attempts to get an alternative minibus were hampered by high fees charged by the owners who demanded M5 000, a figure the club could not raise at such short notice.
“Lesotho’s ladies rugby play in the South African league. To be exact on June 22 we were supposed to travel to Bloemfontein to play Mangaung Rugby,” Mabitle said.

“We planned the trip with teachers because we were going with school children,” he said.
“When we were in Thaba-Nchu … The rear tyre burst and I couldn’t control the car. It failed to stop and it crashed into another car that was coming from the other way, there was a third car also involved,” he said.
“We have lost as a team, this tragedy hit me. Death has separated me from my kids.”
The other players who died in this accident are Mamello Moseme, who was laid to rest two weeks ago, Mpho Macheli and Lerato Kelepa, who were buried last Saturday.
The other one is Keketso Tšeuoa, who will be buried next week in Thaba-Tseka.
Thato’s teachers at Phomolong High School told mourners that she was a brilliant student who excelled in her studies and she was among the top 10 academic performers last year.
The principal, Ralipuo Letsoela, said Thato was asked by her teachers to join other sporting disciplines at the school but she refused until rugby was introduced.

Letsoela said the school did not only lose a brilliant student and devoted rugby player but a good singer as well.
A childhood friend from her Ha-Ramosoeu village in Matelile, who did not say her name, said she was expecting Thato to come home for winter holidays.
“Instead I received bad news of her death,” the girl said, adding: “This has shattered my heart.”
She could not finish her speech as she broke into tears and wept uncontrollably.
There was no church conducting the service but Christian volunteers who directed the funeral broke a popular Lesotho Evangelical Church (LEC) hymn, Ho lokile, ho lokile.

“Seo u nkalimileng sona, ha u re ke se khutlisetse, u nthuse ke tsebe ho re ho lokile, ho lokile.” (That which you have lent me, when you say I should return back, help me say it is alright, alright.)
A demonstration that Mohai was aiming for the best for her daughter was the decision to take her to Maseru for secondary education, away from Matelile’s notorious famo gangs’ influence.
So, it is no surprise that Thato’s parents got all out to get her the best available opportunity to education, at least according to what they could afford, sacrificing for her to have hope of a better future.

Tlalane Phahla