Elsina's Clouds

A Basotho girl's prayer to the ancestors

"When can I paint a wall, Mama?"
"When the rains come and wash away my designs, Elsina. Then you can paint the walls," she says.

For hundreds of years Basotho women in southern Africa have decorated the walls of their houses as prayers for rain.

Bold, colorful art based on traditional African motifs and lyrical prose tell the story of a young girl who paints her first house and waits for the ancestors to hear her.