August
2009
Rites of Passing2
My first experience with death in Tanzania occurred about two months into my Peace Corps training in Morogoro. A woman who cooked lunches for our language training group at Kihonda Secondary had lost her young son to malaria. Our language teacher Petronella (Petti for short) moved ahead in the lesson plan and took us to the section in our book on funerals and their preparations. I learned then that visiting the home of the bereaved to express condolences, “Pole sana” (pronounced Poh-lay sah-nah) and offering a small donation (mchango) to help cover funeral expenses was the typical custom. We walked quietly together to the woman’s home. When we arrived, we entered one at a time, the women of our group wearing khangas that Petti brought for the occasion, each bearing a message about Death, God, or Heaven. We sat on a grass mat on the floor with the bereaved, all of them women, passing around pictures of the young boy. “Pole sana.” You would use the same words with someone over even a mild inconvenience. To a woman whose beloved child has been lost forever, the words are the same: Pole sana. Of course, we could do little more than sit with her while she cried in the arms of her family, pole sana, little more than look at the pictures of her precious, little boy, pole sana, and leave our modest contribution for the funeral costs before returning to the classroom.
The first funeral service I attended in country happened during my parents’ visit to Lupembe village in June of my first year in Tanzania. We had been planning to throw a party for all the students and teachers on the day of their arrival. However, the death of a prominent, local woman necessitated a change in plans. This woman had been the granddaughter of the tribal sub-chief and a non-voting representative to parliament. She had passed away as a young adult from “malaria,” as it was agreed in polite conversation. Several months before, she had given an inspirational talk to the students and her memory was still fresh in everyone’s minds. As we found out later, though she had long since moved away, her final request had been to be buried here, in the village where she was born. The funeral was something of a media event. Television cameras and photographers recorded the proceedings. My parents and I, and my friend Deb (she runs an NGO for orphans and vulnerable children, see www.theolivebranchforchildren.org to help support her work) were recognized by the officiant and we came forward to give our mchango, say a few words, and express our condolences to the family. We had not lingered. Not having really known the woman or her family and feeling awkward about the attention that our very presence commanded, we left after less than an hour.
Death is a common enough occurrence in Tanzanian village life. Funeral on Saturday, church on Sunday, week in and week out, it seems. Despite having been in Tanzania for almost three years, I have managed to avoid both on all but a few occasions. I went to church once with my host family in Morogoro, once when I arrived in Lupembe to introduce myself, and once when I left to say goodbye. As for funerals, I never had a desire to go for voyeuristic reasons and had never really needed to go as a close friend to the aggrieved, to support a family in mourning. Never, until a couple months ago.
The office manager at our field research station is the glue that holds the place together. She handles logistics, payroll, inventory, personnel and is always the person to look for when you have a question. She has been working here for over 20 years. She is the sort of person who is necessary at any successfully functioning organization, the sort of person who would need to be replaced by a minimum of 2-3 people and even then at a loss. When her young son, the second of three children, was first admitted to the hospital, her anxiety showed but she never skipped a beat at work. Everything got accomplished in the usual manner and on time. The initial diagnosis of malaria and the prescribed quinine drip was worrisome, nothing to take lightly, but nothing so uncommon either. Of the diseases that Tanzanian hospitals are experienced and well equipped to handle, malaria is right there at the top. The child was well over 5 years old, past the age when most malaria fatalities occur, as the body has had time to develop resistence to the parasite.
Things did not go as anticipated. He got worse, broke out in pus-filled sores and maintained an alarmingly high fever. He passed away after less than a week. Before I heard the news, I heard the wailing of grief. The celebratory drumming and dancing that had been almost nonstop since the harvest began was cut short. Loud angry cries conversed with piteous whimpers and hushed sobbing. First, the women came, one after another, khangas wrapped around their hips and covering their heads. They came to her home, filling its rooms and spilling out into the yard. They were the grief’s constant companions.
The next day, when the body was to be interred, Jessica and I went to pay our respects. She wore a khanga and I a suit and tie. I wasn’t expecting my outfit to draw so many comments. Western business dress is rather common among the professional classes, even in a small town like Kongwa. However, I was the most dressed-up person there. “Wazungu dress up for funerals,” the director of our research center explained to one of the curious staff members. Well, it’s just another thing to chalk up to cultural difference, I told myself after deciding not to change clothes. In intimate cultural matters, there seem to be wide allowances for foreigners, provided nothing comes across as disrespectful.
When Jessica and I arrived at the house, we hit another stark cultural difference. All the women were gathered out front; all the men were on the far side of the yard, where the funeral service was to be held. There was no gender mixing. Jess and I had not wanted to separate. We loitered on the outskirts looking even more out of place, if such a thing were possible, until a co-worker of mine came to lead us into the house. I say “us” even though it was Jessica who she took by the hand and brought inside. I followed, assuming I was to be included. I was less sure when we stepped indoors. All the furniture had been removed and women were sitting and standing on every square inch of floor space. Most were singing; the rest were crying. I followed Jess down the hall and stopped short of a backroom that held most of the immediate family. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, didn’t know who I would leave my mchango with and turned to leave Jessica there with the rest of the women. I turned around to see my co-worker and friend, a mother mourning the wicked absurbity of her child’s death. All at once she was in my arms, asking me why. I held her and told her that we would take care of her. She was led by her family into the backroom and I wandered outside.
I walked to the backyard and sat with the men, inevitably getting drawn into unwanted conversations that seemed to center around how much I stood out. “Yes, I live here. . . Yes, I speak Swahili. . . Oh no, thank you very much. . . Yes, this is a beautiful country. . . No, I hope to be here for many years. . .” I didn’t want friendly banter. I wanted to cry, something all the women were doing and none of the men were. Jessica emerged from the house and was led to the benches, reserved for family members, under the tent, at the front of the service area. I excused myself and went to meet her, both of us straddling the gender line in the middle of the yard. We were sitting nearly alone, on benches reserved for the family. We were uncomfortable and kept making movements to leave, to stand up and blend back into the crowd only to be immediately attended to and motioned back into our seats. We were uncomfortable being singled out. They were uncomfortable not singling us out.
First the family came in and as they began to take seats on the benches, we were able to stand back into the crowd. I say the family came, but I mean the women and children. The young boy’s father and male relatives sat with the male guests in the backyard, dispersed among them. The women, the mother, her sisters, female friends, the grandmother walked in together, a huddled mass of shuddering and sobbing, with a rhythmic energy to their processional.
When the men brought in the boy’s body, carried in a simple but elegantly decorated casket, the grief reached a new pitch. I found it hard to stay composed. There were women who lay prostrate on grass mats, attended to by their loved ones. The women were expressive in tears and in songs. The men had a different role to play, one that required them to stay solemn and blank. The men in the family stayed by the casket, throughout the bible readings, sermon and songs. At the end, everyone was to walk by the body, to say goodbye. The men remained stoically together. When one of their number could no longer hold back the tears, he covered his face and faded into the background.
At the end, the men loaded the casket into a truck and the people crowded into several cars and trucks, packed in, hanging out the sides. We drove just down the road to a place where one patch of land was incongruously decorated with grave markers. A hole had already been dug. A mat was already prepared on the hard, dusty ground for the women, the immediate family. The men lowered the body inside and began to cover it with dirt, with hoes and with their hands. I again felt out of place in suit and tie. I watched as the men covered the body with handfuls of dirt and then as the women covered it with flowers.
Namkumbuka (I remember) Ezekiel. Pole sana.