Easter 2019 and 2020

Lesotho keeps Easter in a big way, which is somewhat unsurprising given that around 99 percent of its inhabitants are professing Christians. In fact, all of Holy Week is observed by many.

Year	Date	Day	Holiday
2019	19 Apr	Fri	Good Friday
	22 Apr	Mon	Easter Monday
2020	10 Apr	Fri	Good Friday
	13 Apr	Mon	Easter Monday

For Catholics and Protestants, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, but with East Orthodox believers, it commences that day before on the Saturday of Lazarus’ resurrection. And Easter Monday is also observed in Lesotho.

Besides church services on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, Easter is also a time of family feasts and reunions. The Basotho, the name of Lesotho’s main ethnic group, do much traveling to be with family on or just before Easter.

Family feasts may include freshly slaughtered beef, local vegetables, and “joala”, a kind of homemade beer. There is often singing, dancing, jubilation and drinking of joala late into the night.

You will also find Easter parades in Lesotho. But the level of commercialisation is not nearly like that of most Western countries. Instead, the atmosphere is more spiritual and religious, more focused on the traditional meaning of the holiday regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.