Day one of the Funeral

I have so much to write and need to find time this evening to get things down. What a change in mindset and culture. We have had an incredibly full few days as Sonja has mentioned. I am not sure quite where to start.
Maybe with the very sad picture of a father crying. For about 10 minutes he was sitting two chairs away from me at his sons funeral, before he went to sit with the family at the front of the gathering. But while he was next to me I noticed he was simply leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face resting on his hands. And he was quietly crying.
At that moment my heart broke and really went out to this man whose name I don't even know.
Until then being part of the whole funeral had been interesting and I had been observing it like one would a documentary. But suddenly it was real. And this man was weeping quietly next to me for his eight year old son who had drowned in the river the week before.

I went out quite early in the morning on about our third day there to collect some drift wood to hang from the rafters in the kitchen area. We put brass hooks into the wood and hang utensils from them. As I was walking along the beach, one of the villagers appeared on the edge of the bush and waved me over. Through mainly sign language and his broken English I gathered we had to go now to dig the grave for the young boy who had drowned.

We walked for about 20 minutes to the edge of a bushy area. There were already about a dozen village men there and everybody was talking and taking a turn at digging. The mood was not very sombre and the men were generally engaging in what seemed to be lighthearted banter and teasing each others digging skills. We all had a go at digging and made reasonable progress, even though the ground was quite hard. There was quite a lot of light rain and after this became a bit more heavy and frequent it was decided that we would finish the grave the next morning at 07h30.

We all headed up through the fields along paths past mielie fields (corn) and clusters of huts, heading to the family homestead of the young boy who had died. About 500 meters from the huts we stopped. The family had left two big containers of water for washing our hands, which we did before heading over to their homestead for tea.

We sat under the eaves of the huts sheltered from the rain by the overhanging thatch. Everybody had a smoke and a chat. Bloody hell, I missed my pipe. I was inhaling the aroma of rough tobacco rolled in whatever paper was on hand (generally newspaper or pages that looked suspiciously as though they came from school exercise books), and the smell was pure Africa and seemed perfectly suited to the misty rain and the huts around us on the rolling green hills.

When I started getting looks from a caucus of men I thought I was going to be politely asked to leave. And when I got beckoned over I thought this was definitely the case. However, all they wanted to know as if we could use my bakkie (pick-up) to go and fetch a big marquee in the village as they were worried about the weather for the funeral the next day. I explained that it was not a 4x4 and was certain to get stuck in the mud, but was happy to give it a go if we could bring about six strong men along to push when required.

My bakkie must have thought it had died and gone to bakkie-heaven. We spent the next hour slipping and slithering our way through mad, river beds, and charging through bushes. We got stuck a lot, and each time everybody would clamber out and push and bounce, and shout, and laugh, and shove our way clear. We arrived at a homestead, packed the bakkie to the hilt with tent poles, pegs, chairs and a massive marquee. The trip back was just as hairy and at one stage i had to charge up a very muddy hill about six times before I finally made it up. I thought my steering had snapped, because I could quite seriously twist my steering wheel through 360 degrees and not impact our direction in the slightest. We finally unloaded the tent amongst lots of hearty back slapping and reinacting of the ride.

Once the tent was up, we all sat inside and got served tea by the women. It was weak, milky and had about three heaped spoons of sugar added to each tin mug. Delicious. Then two women came in with a big bucket and a lot of tin and plastic bowls. We were each served a big bowl of a white milky looking mixture. The form was to again take two or three big heaped spoons of sugar and sprinkle this over the surface of the bowl. It was an incredibly sour mixture. I think it was made from mielie (corn) meal and water and allowed to go sour. The sugar made the first half litre okay, but the second half litre I really struggled to get down.

Then it was time to head back to our hut and try to make a bit of progress before the day ended.

On the way I passed a group of women heading up the hill carrying water on their heads. This is quite a steep hill. You walk up about 50 meters in height over a 500 meter distance. It is enough to make your legs aware that you are doing it, and your calves ache. Anyway, heading the group was my gorgeous wife. Her shorts were replaced with an ankle length skirt, and around her head she had a scarf very professionally wrapped. On her head was a 15 kilogram load of water. It was her third trip of five.

It left me wondering who had worked harder. I think driving the bakkie and putting up the large tent put me way out in the lead, and I beat her 5 kilometer carrying of water up steep hills, and washing countless bowls in cold water to serve us.

Anyway, later a blog about the day of the funeral and the slaughtering of the bull and the raw bulls stomach.

Yummy.