Inspired by Mercy Mwara. Your earlier post reminds me of an incident in which we accompanied one of our pals to the burial of his father in law. We had agreed to hire a ‘reputable’ vehicle (Prado) upon arrival in Kisumu for the road trip to the village. We did shopping before embarking on a two hour drive to some remote part of Alego-Usonga. We had a rough map of the route and guiding landmarks such as a school here, a church there, a ‘Ngo’u tree’ a river etc and a pub in Siaya where we made the mandatory stop to ‘charge’ before the final stretch. The journey was smooth with all the landmarks falling in their expected place. We eventually reached the homestead. There were lots of activities taking place. Smoke billowed from behind raft and mat structures partly hidden by a large grass thatched house. A lone mourner was engaging in a soliloquy in a secluded part of the homestead, engaging the deceased in conversation (like ‘why have you left me yawa, who will keep me company’ etc). Men with knives were wrestling a bull in another corner as dogs fought and growled over a hoof and skin of what may have been a discarded part of a slaughtered sheep or goat. We were welcomed by wailing women and men performing dramatic dirge skits and shown where to park. Upon alighting and offloading the shopping, we were ushered into a tent in an area that appeared to have been serving as a synagogue or high table. It was arranged with plastic chairs of mixed colours behind a basic wooden table with a table cloth that appeared a little too small, spread diagonally to cover as much surface of the rugged table as it could. It had a candle and wooden cross and other religious paraphernalia. The rest of the sitting area consisted of several rows of wooden benches occupied by several curious men. Women sat with their legs stretched on grass and a few privileged ones sat on lassos. A man who was preaching, holding an aged bible with a broken spine was preaching but had to stop to give time for the arriving VIPs to settle. A man who could have been the local ‘Bishop’ or ‘pastor’ and the areas chief both stood to welcome us and offered one of us their seats, (which we declined, prompting an elderly man to be castigated for ‘sitting while visitors from far are standing’. He quickly offered his chair). The program was interrupted to enable us be introduced and to be taken to view the body which was in a coffin delicately resting on two stools placed on each end of the coffin under a tree, with a portrait decorated with some odd looking flowers. The in law (our pal) stood and introduced himself and made a short speech (which he seemed to have rehearsed) on how he is married to so and so (he mentioned his wife’s name and said she must have been held up with some chores in the homestead. He requested that she be told he had arrived). The crowd listened eagerly to the their son in law from Buore-ka-Bwana (Nairobi) on how he had received news of the demise great Mzee, a loving father and a personal friend with whom he shared great words of wisdom and consulted periodically. He had tremendous respect for the deceased. It had come to him with great shock and disbelief. He concluded by asking for the mourners to include him in their prayers ‘during the sad and difficult period’. It is at this moment that we realized something was wrong. We were attending the burial of an old woman. We were at the wrong funeral. ‘Our funeral’ was farther on, some four to five kilometres down the road!
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 07:20:35 +0000
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