TEARS, DANCES, SONGS SUM UP MAHLALELA’S FUNERAL

LOMAHASHA – It was 6:33am when Gideon Mahlalela’s body touched down at the deep end of his grave yesterday in Lomahasha, his parental home.

His wife, Mary, who came all the way from Canada to bury her husband, was inconsolable when she saw the Mbabane Burial Society’s pall bearers lowering the casket into the ground.

Mahlalela’s son, Jama, was inconsolable too. However, he tried to comfort other relatives who were also in tears. Despite that prominent people were conspicuously absent; more than 1 000 mourners paid their last respects to the former chief executive officer of Swaziland Railway (SR) who was, throughout the vigil, described by mourners as a legend in corporate governance.

The hearse ferried his casket to the gravesite just before 6am. By then, it was still dark. Pall bearers waited for about 20 minutes at the graveyard in the hope that the sun would rise soon to give light as they did not want to experience hiccups when they lowered the casket to the ground.

The sun rises in the East and Mahlalela was also buried in the East. As if to say goodbye to him, two birds flew over the mourners.
The family graveyard overlooks South Africa and Mozambique. Mahlalela’s parental home is a stone’s throw away from the fence separating the boundaries of the two countries - Mozambique and Swaziland.

His home is situated two kilometres away from Mbuzini in Mozambique, where President Samora Machel and 43 others were killed in a Tupolev Tu-jetliner crash on October 19, 1986.
Therefore, some of his relatives live in Mozambican and South African territories.

They also came to pay their last respects to the man who was instrumental to the success of the Smart Partnership dialogue. 
In fact, Mahlalela was buried by ordinary people. There were so many of them in attendance.  They spoke highly of him. The CEOs, MDs, GMs and PSs were nowhere to be seen. However, members of the rank and file hired minibuses to ferry them from Mbabane to Lomahasha.

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