The mother sat stone still. She didn’t say a word. She
didn’t shed a tear. The other women around her made small chitchat. I believe
they were just there to keep her company and to distract her from her grieving.
In watching a funeral here, an outsider might think that people become numb to
the pain; that there is so much death and loss here, particularly of children,
that people don’t take it as hard because they are used to it. I don’t think
that is true. I think that people all grieve the same even if outwardly they
don’t always show it.
Les
funérailles chrétiennes, quoique similaires à la surface à celles des
musulmans, ont une importante différence, la famille du décédé sert du
« vin » local à tous les visiteurs. C’est-à-dire qu’il y a plus de vielles
matantes et vieux mononcles soules qui racontent je ne sais quoi dans leur
patois. Moi, je n’ai jamais su ce qu’on devrait dire à quelqu’un qui vient de
perdre un proche, alors je me tais. C’est facile à faire puisque les gens
supposent que je ne connais pas la langue de toute façon, mais les funérailles ici
sont une affaire très sociale ou tous les membres d’une famille se réunissent
après de longs moments. Souvent ils se déplacent de très loin, des villages à
plusieurs kilomètres (loin, surtout pour ceux qui viennent à pied). Pour
certains, surtout les femmes, les funérailles et les mariages sont les seuls
occasions qu’elles ont pour sortir de la maison et socialiser. Les funérailles
durent trois jours avec les visiteurs qui vont et viennent et d’autres qui
restent. Tout le monde est assis dehors, les femmes d’un côté, les hommes de
l’autres. Les femmes servent le vin.
I’ve assisted two funerals in the three days. One for my 3
year old neighbour who passed away suddenly after falling sick a couple days
ago and one for my friend’s cousin who swallowed poison after getting in a
fight with his brother (In the past three years, the uncle has lost three
children, this one being the third). The real tragedy in both of these deaths
is that had they had access to proper medical facilities, it is likely that
both deaths could have been prevented. In the boy’s case, if the sickness had
been detected, properly diagnosed and treated on time, he may have recovered
(my understanding is he died of malaria). As for the cousin, he was taken to the
hospital, but there were no doctors present (as far as I know, there are never
any doctors there, if you have an emergency you’re out of luck). Some
attendants did what they could (who knows what kind of training they have) but
he died shortly after. Afterward, the family asked the ambulance driver if he
could help transport the body, only to be told that he didn’t even have the
keys! The ambulance was given about a month ago as a vote-winning gift to the
hospital but what use is an ambulance if the driver doesn’t have the keys?
Il est
souvent dit que l’hôpital de Bogo est un lieu ou les gens vont pour mourir, pas
pour guérir. Ici, ce ne sont pas les malades qui vont à l’hôpital, mais les
morts. Ce sont des blagues sinistres, mais qui cachent une vérité tragique. Le
développement ne se mesure pas selon le GNP d’un pays, sa richesse économique
ou son taux d’emplois. Je crois que le
vrai développement signifie l’accès médical et la santé pour tous. Si on veut
avoir une vraie idée du niveau de développement dans un pays ont devrait se demander :
Combien d’enfants moins de cinq meurent à toutes les années? Combien de
personnes meurent de maladies comme la malaria et le choléra qui pourraient
être prévenues avec une bonne
éducation, de l’accès à l’eau
potable, des latrines sanitaires et des
traitements accessibles? Si la réponse est ????????????????????????????
c’est sous-développé.
I have been very privileged in that I haven’t suffered much
loss in my lifetime. Death hasn’t been very active or present in my life-
something for which I am grateful, but am also made more aware of now that I am
surrounded by people for whom death is a frequent visitor. If you talk to
anyone here, they will tell you they have lost a child, a sister, a father, a
cousin, an aunt and probably more than one. Granted people here have large
extended families and many people don’t differentiate between cousins and
brothers (they don’t have a word for cousins but refer to them as their
brothers and sisters born to their uncle or aunt). Going to a funeral is probably
the number one excuse people have for not showing up at a meeting (followed
closely behind by going to a wedding). But the fact that it happens more often
here doesn’t make it easier to bear, though they do seem to know how to cope.
I’ve been to several funerals since my arrival here and have only witnessed one
person crying, but I don’t think that it hurts any less. Maybe, they’re just
better at hiding it, either that or I’m not looking in the right place.
