…calls her a bitch and accuses her of killing his father
Caswell Tlali
MASERU — A Qoaling widow, 65, is now homeless after her son allegedly called her a “bitch” and threw her out of her matrimonial home accusing her of killing his father.
’Mankeletseng Malakoane, who can only walk with the aid of crutches, was allegedly kicked out last month and is now staying with a neighbour.
She was thrown out together with her two daughters from a previous marriage and three grandchildren.
The widow said her son, Buang Malakoane, 28, kicked her out of her home after accusing her of killing his father.
Buang also allegedly accused his mother of squandering his late father’s money.
Malakoane said her husband had been bedridden for two years before he died in May.
Trouble started soon after her husband’s death, she said.
She said her other son, Poloko, 26, could have been “influenced by Buang to support the decision to evict me from my home”.
But Poloko, she explained, was not present when Buang evicted her from her home.
“My children whom I gave birth to are now calling me a bitch,” Malakoane said as she sobbed.
She said Buang also barred her from attending her husband’s burial on May 29.
“I was lying on the mourning mattress when Buang entered,” she recalled.
“He did not greet me but instead he insulted me and told me that he did not want to see me.
“He said: ‘You bitch! You spent my father’s money and when it was finished you killed him.”
Malakoane said Buang’s allegations that she had killed her husband were “hurtful lies” because “he knew I was the one who was caring for him with my daughters when he was sick for two years”.
“I informed his sons but they did not come to see him.”
Buang and Poloko work as taxi drivers in South Africa.
“What hurts me most is that I built those houses with the money I inherited from my mother,” she said, this time no longer sobbing but wailing loudly.
The neighbour who opened her doors for Malakoane, ’Mamasupha Letsie, said she felt burdened because she now had six extra mouths to feed.
Letsie is also an unemployed widow and lives with her five children in a five-roomed house.
“I am willing to help but this is a burden I cannot carry for long,” Letsie said.
Malakoane told the Sunday Express that she moved in with Makhaola, her late husband, in the late 1970s.
By that time she already had two daughters.
She said she lived with Makhaola for a “long time” before they got married.
In the meantime, Makhaola was taking care of her daughters as his own.
She gave birth to Buang and Poloko.
And in 1995 they decided to get married under the community of property marriage law.
When Buang allegedly kicked her out of the house in May, Malakoane reported to the area chief of Qoaling, ’Mataelo Matsoso.
Chief Matsoso heard the case at her customary court on Thursday.
At the court, Buang said he was not happy that his mother was staying with his daughters at a house that his father had built.
He said his mother was treating Poloko and him like “we are nothing in our father’s house” while she pampered her daughters and their children.
Buang said his half-sisters should stay at their own father’s house in Quthing.
He also claimed that her mother could not have been legally married to his father because she had not divorced her previous husband.
“Her husband died in 2003 and she wore a mourning cloth for him,” Buang said.
He however said he was prepared to accept her mother back home as long as she does not bring her daughters with her.
“I don’t want to see them there,” said Buang. “They should go to their father’s house.”
Buang also denied that he had expelled his mother from the house.
In her judgment, Chief Matsoso ordered Buang to allow Malakoane back in her house and said the family must resolve the wrangle over the ownership of the house amicably.
But by Friday evening Buang had not complied with the ruling.
Buang told the Sunday Express in an interview that he was angry with his mother because she had not informed him when his father was sick.
And when he died, Buang said, his mother did not inform him as well.
“I heard from other people that my father had died and when I came home I found her already out of the house,” he said.
“I suspect that she was running away from my uncles because she was afraid of facing them after failing to tell them of their brother’s death.”
Buang said his parents’ marriage certificate was invalid because it was obtained while both of them were still married to other persons.
“My father had his wife who is still alive,” he said.
“My mother’s husband died in 2003 and I was the one who ritually cleansed her by slaughtering a sheep.”
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