Mary's Funeral

On the morning of Mary's burial we travelled to Mary's family home in order to assist with providing transport to the church. Several dozen people clung to my bakkie as we made our way through the pothole filled roads of the locations. The funeral party wound its way through the streets until finally we arrived at a modern church a few kilometres away. The church was newly built and was clearly thriving. Mary had been a Pastor at the Church and thus the building was full to beyond a comfortable capacity.

Mary's body lay at the front of the church in front of the altar. Behind the coffin stood an array of Pastors - each of whom would play a part in the service. The most moving part of the service for me was its climax when the congregation filed passed Mary's open casket. Watching her mother and father and especially her son saying goodbye to their daughter/mother has heartwrenching.

After the service we returned to the bakkie and again filled up with people. We then followed the hearse and funeral cars to the cemetry.

The cemetry in Lusaka is the size of a small town. It is vast. The mounds of earth that mark each grave are stretch far beyond the horizon in every direction. In order to accomodate the dead the authorities have had to dig graves in between existing plots and thus the graves are incredibly close together. In fact it is difficult to walk through the graveyard without stepping on the side of some of the mounds.

The driver of the hearse struggled to find the plot where Mary was to be buried. We drove in a snake-like convoy through the cemetry for a worryingly long period of time before the plot was found. In other circumstances the scene might have been almost comical. It goes to illustrate just how vast the cemetries are in Southern Africa.

At the cemetry

A large crowd had gathered at the graveside when we arrived. Over the shoulders of my fellow mourners I could see the canopy that covered Boipelo's grave. Next to the canopy was a large pile of earth and the hole of about two metres deep where Boipelo was to be buried. The undertakers had positioned the coffin into a hoist that would lower Boipelo's body into her grave at the appropriate moment. More prayers were said at the graveside but my overwhelming memory is of the wailing that grew more and more intense as the time approached where Boipelo would be lowered into the ground. Several women at the graveside collapsed and had to be escorted away. As Boipelo's body was lowered to into the grave the wailing incresed in volume as grief overwhelmed so many of the mourners.

Once Boipelo was in her grave the family members shovelled the first earth onto her coffin. The noise of the earth impacting on the wood of the casket led to further outpourings of grief. Soon the process of burying Boipelo intensified. The male memebers of the funeral party took it in turns to shovel the earth into the grave - I was quite surprised to see that the mourners buried the body themselves as in my own county it is a task that is usually left to the undertakers. The process of shifting earth onto the grave continued until a mound of at least a metre in height was above the grave.

The burial ended with the family placing flowers on the grave before all filed away in silence.

The journey to the graveside

Following the body viewing a few more prayers were said before Boipelo's body was carried to the funeral car. The hearse then led a convoy of perhaps 50 vehicles to the village cemetry. I was driving my 'bakkie'. I had about 20 people in it or hanging off it. It was expected that anyone with a vehicle would carry as many passengers as was physically possible. The elderly sat inside the vehicle or whilst the young clung to whichever part of the truck they could. I found it most unnerving the first few times I carried so many passengers but I soon realised that no one ever fell off (and even if they had there didn't exist a culture of litigation!)

At the cemetery I noticed at least 2 other burials taking place. This was an unsurprising sight even in a relatively small village. Burials never always took place on Saturday in Botswana and there would always be many taking place at the same time. As we walked to the place where Boipelo's grave had been dug I couldn't help notice the countless white crosses that stood mute in the ground. Each cross would have a name and a date on it. The vast majority of the crosses were for young people who had died in their late teens or early years of adulthood. It was quite rare to see the grave of an elderly person.

This is the legacy of HIV/AIDS. Parents and grandparents burying their children. And this was not just the case in this cemetry but all over Botswana ... and Zimbabwe... and Zambia... and South Africa ... in fact all over Sub-Saharan Africa. The implications of this is something I will return to in a later post.