The other day there was a huge storm in my friend’s village, which felled a house in the night and killed the two people inside. Within the last month I’ve heard about 7 deaths of people young and old. Coming from my background where up till a few years ago no one I really knew had died, that is a staggering number.
Death is a weird thing in any culture. Not weird necessarily but definitely very unique and specific for each culture. Shortly before coming down here I read a fantastic book called The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch, an undertaker and poet. First and foremost you should all read it and also watch the PBS special and listen to him read excerpts from it. So fantastic. Anyways the book is really beautifully written and discusses the importance of grief and how funerals really aren’t for the dead but for the living, it’s a way for them to come to terms with the dead.
Here in Burkina they do things a little differently when it comes to funerals. First of all public displays of affection are almost non existent. In training, while discussing cultural norms we talked about how to show affection in relationships and how to tell if people even like each other. I still consider that a very difficult question, even after living with host families for three months. More often then not I could not see anyway that my host parents showed they loved each other much less even liked each other. Public displays of affection are not acceptable. Mostly the way married couples show their affection for each other is through small acts of kindness or even what I would call common courtesies, also if the husband spends a lot of time at home, that’s a good sign that there is affection.
The other day I was at a wedding anniversary, the couple has been married for 26 years and she got him a new pair of shoes, he said a public thank you to her in front of everyone and then they gave each other bisous, which is just the French way of kissing each cheek two times. That’s it.
Also a tradition which I really love is that while public displays of affection are not acceptable, it is culturally appropriate to hold hands with your friends. I love this. I love seeing two grown men holding hands and talking as they walk down the street. Just a sign of affection and friendship. Adorable.
Anyways, back on topic- because public displays of affection or emotion are pretty much non existent, grief, in my opinion, becomes fascinating. I have yet to understand how people here deal with their emotion, oft times I wonder if they have any (clearly I know they do, but it’s just so different and rare to see it, besides fake anger directed at misbehaving children. It’s hard to fathom how they keep it to themselves, coming from our culture where everything is loud and open). Typically when old people die there isn’t much fuss about it, they were old, they lived their life and it’s not unexpected or a surprise when they die. Usually, there’s not much fuss about it, that day word will get around and neighbors will come by to express their condolences and that’s that. Sometimes when the person is really well known and respected like a chief they could wait a year to do the funeral, in order to have a proper awesome sendoff. Now this was confusing to me and I asked repeated questions because I could not understand how they could wait a year to bury someone. But I think they bury the person right away but don’t hold the funeral services until they are prepared to have an awesome party and eat a lot of food, thus appropriately honoring the person and the life they lead.
However, if a child dies it’s a completely different story. During training my friends 9 year old host brother got sick with what they thought was malaria but really was typhoid and they found out too late and he died in the middle of the night. The next morning he found out and said he would go over after school to give his condolences, but the family said he should do it that morning. By the time he got back home at 5 that evening the son was buried and everything was finished. The next day the boy’s father called his dead son’s best friend and cousin over, and filled his arms with the dead boy’s clothes.
Coming from our culture where funerals take at least a couple of days, for people to hear about it, get there, and get everything ready for the wake and funeral service, a 12 hour turn around from death to burial of a child is incredible to me. I asked why it happened so fast and someone said that with little kids they bury them right away because it’s sad and they want to forget about it quicker. Leading me to a quote from The Undertaking,
“When we bury the old, we bury the known past, the past we imagine sometimes better than it was, but the past all the same, a portion of which we inhabited. Memory is the overwhelming theme, the eventual comfort.
But burying infants, we bury the future, unwieldy and unknown, full of promise and possibilities, outcomes punctuated by our rosy hopes. The grief has no borders, no limits, no known ends, and the little infant graves that edge the corners and fence rows of every cemetery are never quite big enough to contain that grief. Some sadnesses are permanent. Dead babies do not give us memories, they give us dreams.”
That idea, to bury kids fast so they can forget about it does not make any sense in my mind. I have to feel that I misunderstood, because to me you can’t forget about a child who dies. However, at the same wedding anniversary, while the husband was publicly thanking his wife and God for the 26 years they spend together, he mentioned all the good times they had, all the blessing and briefly touched on the trials. One of which sounded again to me like a son who died in a car accident only a year ago. I felt I misunderstood. I now know this family quite well, I have met everyone and am friendly with all the kids who are about my age, they are very kind to me and talk about themselves and ask about my family, and they never once mentioned another son or brother. Surely I misunderstood. Surely when someone dies young they don’t go into a book where no one mentions their name again or speaks about them. Surely they aren’t forgotten. Surely I misunderstood.
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