My 1st Malawian Funeral

My 1st Malawian Funeral

Today I attended my 1st Malawian funeral with the Yao.
My friend Hildegard (a 3rd generation German from South Africa) lost her house worker (Dave) Easter Sunday to a sudden onset of illness then death. Very tragic, as 2 days earlier, his wife gave birth to a newborn son (5th child)…and was in the same hospital still that he came to for care and died in.

So the day started off around 9:30 am with arranging transportation for many people….some squeezed into the large vehicle we took and others had to ride in the back of rented the matola (Open bed tuck) out to a far away place in a village. Three of the worker’s children rode with us.

We arrived to the location an hour or so later and many people were already there sitting in the dirt, on porches and under trees. The women sat in one area and the men in another….the majority of the children were sent off to another area.
The women that were family and closest to Dave, were in the wailing hut. Dave’s 2 girls that we brought also went in and sat with the women.

This was hard to sit and listen to! I was on the outside wall of it, on the ground. As the ladies and girls would whale and shout pain driven words……you couldn’t help but cry! The poor little girls were balling their eyes out.

We sat for hours listening to this come and go in waves. It was hot and we had to move to under a tree eventually. Then it rained and up went the umbrella’s (also used for the sun later).

They prepared Ugali (corn maize porridge) with small dried fish for the family (all that came to stay for the 3 required days that is tradition, are to be fed by the family village during their stay), so we sat and watched them prepare this over a fire in huge pots. The women worked very hard in the hot sun over those fires to do this and it was very organized.

Then, everybody had a chance to view Dave in his casket before we continued (there were a few hundred in attendance I believe). Many went through and the men went through 1st…most just came out with their heads down…..but then the women and his children went through…and the wailing began again. It was brutal to watch his wife go through. She was the 1st female to go in…and she dropped to the floor wailing and crying out to him. She would not get up and a few ladies had to carry her out (also keeping in mind that she had just delivered their baby just a few days ago). Then his girls came through…oh, not fun to watch their little faces so sad and crying as they came out….that had to be tough to see their daddy like that! All the women that went through from the family, went back into the wailing hut and again went through a time period of wailing as we sat and listened.

Then the funeral began. They had members of the body from the Anglican Church close to their village, who did the ceremonies. They also sang throughout the whole day….very beautiful music! They were dressed in white and blue attire that matched. They did a beautiful job in honoring Dave and they gave him a good burial. They had many processes that I did not understand, but it was done nicely. There was lots of flowers, bamboo grass, crosses, etc. and Hildegard had purchased him a beautiful casket. All this was organized in a half of a day….which amazed me. They had to be working on a lot of this stuff since the moment they got word of his passing. That was yesterday late afternoon (Easter) until early this AM when we arrived.

After the ceremonies, he was taken to the graveyard a ways a way and most hiked there in the rain/mud. After being put down in the hole, many men were around it and buried the 1st layers of the casket by hand (one handful at a time passed from one guy down to the next, down to the next…etc. The dirt was clay dirt and because it was wet…it was a solid pile each time they passed it on. All the men washed from buckets afterwards.

After he was completely buried, a few family members and Hildegard put flower wreaths on his grave and then the women of the church all knelt around his grave and put the bamboo leaves on and sang and prayed for him. He was completely surrounded by these women that were on their knees in the mud in their matching outfits. It was kind of Angelic like.

The next stage was going back to the village and sorting out what part of the family was coming back with us to Mangochi….as the family all stays and grieves the next 3 days usually and they wanted the eldest son (about 13) to stay with the men…..and the wife with the new baby to stay there as well…since she was not in a good frame of mind as you can imagine.

So Hildegard had to address the issue…..what do we do with these little girl if all their support system is up here and they are to be taken back home to be alone?
This was interesting to watch in a cultural perspective.

As we were asking this to the brothers of Dave, the 2 brothers said…..we have an elder brother that will have to make these decisions and brought him. He said….we have an uncle that is the one who makes these decisions, I will get him. So he came and they sorted it all out….but the decision was all this eldest uncle’s, for the well fare of these kids.
In the mean time, the mother of the 3 eldest kids of Dave’s was there (though Dave had custody of them) and she had no say in what to do with her kids. She had to let the Uncle of her ex-husband decide what was best for the kids. It was interesting to watch how this worked and to see how the mom in general, has no say in these issues.

The funeral ended late afternoon…which was a long day….especially as most were not fed or given any drink in the heat of the day. We were gone for 8 hours for this.

So as you can imagine…there is a lot of change ahead for these children…. They now have NO provider, daddy, or idea what will happen over the next month. They live in town now (had just moved in and settled into one of the SIM compounds this past 2 weeks) and are able to attend school. But with no body to provide for them here now, they will likely have to go back to the village and their lives will dramatically change.

In this country, when I women is left behind with the kids and no provider, they do not get food stamps, shelter, welfare..etc. Dave was their sole provider (very few are able to fully provide for their families her due to lack of work) and with this being a mixed family, likely they will be split up….as the new wife will not be able to care for all of his kids…let alone her own 2.

Please pray for these kids if they come to mind and for this situation. Thank you!

The death of a parent or both is very common here, but usually they are sick for a while and it is known it is going to happen eventually. Dave was healthy, laughing and working just the other day. With this being so sudden…..there was no time to plan. There will be lots of planning going on by the extended families in the near future that will affect these kids’ lives dramatically!

With this family being a Christian family, this will be even more difficult for the kids as they are Yao and the majority of Yao are Muslim.

~Tammy~