Mohahlaula

‘Mohahlaula’ is one of a fairly large genre within Mohapeloa’s oeuvre that expresses the loneliness of the exile, traveller or migrant. Other examples in his second songbook, Meloli Le Lithallera Tsa Afrika II are ‘Ha Eso’ and ‘Jim, Motsoalle oa ka’; in Meloli I, ‘Methaka, Emang’ and ‘Palesa ea Bocha’. The migrant worker, far away from Lesotho on the mines of Johannesburg, imagines the Maluti mountains of his homeland, the major mountain range that covers half of Lesotho and creates the border with South Africa to the east. Homesickness is often expressed in Mohapeloa’s work as a longing to see those mountains. Another characteristic of Moerane is the poignant way his poetry addresses the journey, the road, the people for whom the traveller will work (‘my masters’) and the people left behind.