A Funeral.
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 10/Nov/2009 06:29, 34 days ago
Thursday 5thNov,    Today I had the opportunity to learn more about the Ethiopian culture but unfortunately under very sad circumstances. The Administrative Vice-President’s one and a half year old daughter died yesterday and so today was the funeral. (I was amazed at how quickly a funeral is arranged in this country.) It was his first and only child and she had been sick for quite a long time but more recently had seemed to be making a recovery and so the death came as quite a shock. Most lessons were cancelled in the university as most staff (and many students) wanted to attend the ceremony and show their respects. I wasn’t sure it was appropriate for me to go as I had not had the opportunity to meet the AVP yet and often funerals in the UK are quite private affairs. However, I was assured that it was different here and funerals automatically have an open invitation for anyone who would like to pay their respects and it may even be considered disrespectful not to go. As I knew we would be attending church I went home and got my‘Nutella’ (local white scarf) to cover my head and my colleagues seemed to appreciate this gesture a lot. As we walked to the home of the deceased they pointed out how all the women were wearing their scarves upside down as a sign of mourning.   As we reached home of the AVP we were met by hoards of people and could hear sounds of wailing coming from inside the house. The family continued to howl and bawl as they loaded the tiny coffin onto a 4 by 4. The mourning was so much less reserved than in the UK and it was painful to witness such clear distress. As the car drove slowly past I couldn’t help but think of all the children I know in the UK around the same age as this child. No one could tell me what she died from but it is hard not to wonder if she would have survived if she lived in the UK. The Vice President is obviously comparatively wealthy and I am sure provided his daughter with the best that Ethiopia had to offer. She died in a well respected hospital in the Capital. How much worse must it be for families with no money here.  The funeral procession continued slowly to the church (about 1km away). The university had laid on some transport for those who would find the walk more difficult and as I had been feeling ill that week and it was an unusually hot day I was very grateful to be bundled into one of the buses. The transport moved along at the pace of the walking crowd and so about 1000 people arrived together at the graveyard. There was lots more wailing and weeping as the coffin was taken to its final resting place. I stayed back from the proceedings with my colleague Solomon who finds funerals very difficult and so did not see exactly what happened at the graveside. The burial itself was very short (only lasting about 5-10minutes) and then the crowd gathered on the grassy mound in front of the church while the father (AVP) said a few words. I was disappointed to see that the local church did not stop blaring its music out of its megaphone. As a result, I imagine very few people were actually able to hear the words that were said. To me it appeared so disrespectful but it seemed everyone else accepted this as the norm. After the short ceremony the crowd quickly dispersed. The father (AVP) stood at a junction in the road and as we all filed past we bowed to show our respect. In situations like that when there are no words you can offer that can be of any comfort or that seem appropriate it was quite a relief to have a simple gesture such as a bow to turn to.And so I have attended my first (and I hope last) funeral in Ethiopia. I don’t really know what else to say or how to close this blog entry. It seems quite insensitive talking about the funeral of someone I hardly know and I struggled for a while about whether I should actually mention it on my blog. However... in the end I felt it seemed even worse to just go on and pretend it didn’t happen. So there you have it, my account of a sad but all too common an event in Ethiopia.