Survival of the greediest

If there is anything I am slowly learning, it is that the ties that bind families are mostly based on money.

- KEKELETSO NAKELI

We are held together by the funds of those who provide for us. After their deaths, family members turn against each other.

The unspoken hatred destroys family unions. Battles for estates are the cause of many broken families.

There is a Sotho hymn, loosely thrown around when the riches of estates come into play, "lefu la hao la mphidisa", directly translated, "your death has given me sustenance".

Families over the years have coyly smiled at each other, just enough to reach the milestone of burials and thereafter, literally at each other's throats for legacies that gogo left behind. Uncles claiming their right to inheritance based simply on their gender.