Funerals

Saturday 05.00 am – jessis, who set the alarm?! Please turn it off! Please - we only fell sound asleep half an hour ago because the neighbours were praying and singing all night! Oh no, that’s why, jump out of bed, get ready, they stopped to bath, that’s what we should do, and make it snappy.
After four deaths within three months when we arrived in the Netherlands last April we thought we wouldn’t have a funeral for a while. But just before X-mass Maud’s grandmother and Moruwe passed away.
Moruwe, who was doing the carpentry in our house (LJ taught him), was our first nearby experience with death in Botswana. It was very sad and at the same time weird. Sad because he was an exceptionally nice, good man, and his wife is pregnant with their first to be born. Weird because what follows is a train of steps everyone knows by hart - except LJ and we. Ever been to a morgue where they pull out one of those drawers you know from B-movies? Out comes the not yet cleaned body of Moruwe, who only has been dead a few hours. The men who are around have to put him in a coffin and carry him into a car. Of you race to the yard (it’s close to 40 degrees and the body is not yet frozen), and than to the funeral parlour. He should be escorted properly, but racing as fast as the car with the body will only bring more deaths.
January we had two funerals in the village: our neighbour and Bashi’s grandfather. As we know now funerals are an important part of social village life.
Saturday 05.30 am: we are ready by the time Jeff and Pelo walk over to our yard. We missed the first part of the funeral service, but are still in time to hear some speeches, prayers and songs, and view the coffin. In an orderly disorderly escort we bring the coffin to the graveyard, where it is lowered into the grave accompanied by more praying and singing. The singing is magnificent. After the men filled up the grave everyone races back to the yard for brunch (it’s not yet 9 am). The week prior we followed the preparations: goats and a cow were slaughtered, and huge piles of bogobe (sorghum-pap) are cooked.
The slaughtering and cooking are only part of the activities. Until the funeral there are daily prayers - an hour of praying and singing in the afternoon, followed by tea, bread and catching up with each other. (The bread is delicious, baked in cast-iron pots in an open fire. Maud found someone who’s going to teach her how to make it.) The men sit together under a tree or tent, and the women stand around the cooking pots or sit in front of the house. Because we are mekgowa (white) we only have to go to the prayers once, but otherwise it’s a weeklong obligation. We even know by heart what food we should buy for the contribution of the mekgowa-families (Jeff & Pelo and we join forces for funerals, and baby-showers).
The last night there is a wake. A solemn happening, although some men see it as an occasion to get very drunk.