Seanamarena

by Thabo Nyawuza (South Africa)

A leap into the unknown Lesotho

This is a story about Five old friends from primary school meets once again after so many years without seeing each other and they decides to go for an adventure tour for a first time ever in their lives. One of them is mentally disorder but clever, he talks slow but full of jokes, no one knows that he has a gift to speak few different languages. The problem are his friends that makes fun of him and they used to undermine him since from high school. Bongani (mentally disorder) joins them later after they’ve been waiting for him so long as they have to live South Africa heading to Drakensberg Mountain up until Sani Pass border (Lesotho). Everybody is happy in the car but some of the jokes are personal to Bongani and when he shows them that he doesn’t like that, everybody laughs at him. Luckily there’s that one friend amongst them who sees that and try to warn others but the three guys doesn’t listen. Bongani feels like an embarrassment to come with them. Ntuthuko (second friend) decides to give him alcohol to get him drunk early as possible so he can sleep. He pass out until they get into their final destination where they stuck to speak South Sotho at Lesotho border. Bongani wakes up suspicious that he’s been sleeping forever and everyone has to take out their passport to do a check in. No one wants to go first and Bongani sees that as an opportunity to make money out of his friends and pay revenge to them. He lies to them that if someone can’t speak Sotho after crossing Lesotho border, the Basotho people from the villages will give them a fine of R500 for each person. Then you can continue speak any language or else you don’t have to speak at all and if they catch you speaking other language, then the fine will be doubled to R1000 for each person to those who will be caught cheating. Bongani’s friends don’t know what to do, everyone keeps quiet and not even knowing what to say. Bongani makes sure that they believes him and his plan works so well. It is his turn to prove his friends that he is not dumb, being mental disorder doesn’t mean his crazy. The fact that his friends were not aware of his gift except Ntuthuko, they get very scared and starts panicking as they continue driving along and they starts asking questions while Ntuthuko act like he doesn’t know anything. They tells him that he will be the one who will speak to Basotho people first so they can see if it’s true of what he says. He approaches the Basotho people and tip them with R200 to bribe their smile for his friends so they will believe that he was telling the truth. Jabu, Linda and Akhona (3 friends) searches themselves as Bongani collect those R500 for each person. They experiencing the Basotho culture and how do they celebrate themselves in their culture. Everyone enjoys the Basotho culture, since Bongani knows how to speak Sotho they gives him their cultural blanket as a gift called Seanamarena. Bongani’s friends never realizes that they are allowed to speak any language until they finds out on their way back home when Ntuthuko wants his share as Bongani promised. They all had conflict but it turns to be the right timing for all of them to talk about their mistakes. Then afterwards, they apologizes and hugs each other. Bongani and his friends goes back home happy and understanding each other. Now the four guys takes out a bottle of alcohol and open it to drink for celebration but Bongani warns them about the bad things that he experienced during the tour, so he doesn’t want drink anymore and his friends also decides to scatter it on the ground and they drives away as the screen goes black. This is a Comedy that teaches a lot about honestly, cultural diversity and adventurers. Just like Bongani and his friends after they broke trust between each other, then they able to learn more about the Basotho culture and their lifestyle.