My apologies in advance for the solemn tone of this blog post, but in my attempt to authentically share Zambia through the lens of someone living in a village, the reality is that sometimes I will share stories that bring the grave reality of life here to the surface. On Wednesday I made the usual weekly trip into the boma of Chadiza, but noticed something as I approached Kulika village, just a few kilometers from my own on the same main road – branches in the road. This is something I had been informed about during training but it was a first time experience for me, it indicates that a funeral is occurring in this place, so vehicles must slow and bike traffic must walk, much like how traffic has to give the right of way in the US to a funeral procession. It was eerie for me, as the local carpenter resides here and the people therefore know my name as I have used his services. When I bike past normally all it takes is one child to see me and the “Bwanji Sarah!” chorus begins, this can be a little obnoxious at times, but its much better than “Mazungu, Mazungu!” they know me and are just excited to greet me, so I cheerfully reply as many times as possible while I pass through. This time however, there was a solemn atmosphere and a crushing silence as I walked my bike past without a single greeting, just following the other bike traffic until the next set of branches signaling you can resume biking. Fast forward…it was a busy week I was back and forth a lot, when I finally had time to sit down and chat with the women after lunch on Sunday I was told that a child had died in my village on Saturday. It was a girl, not even 19mos old, she died of Malaria – the number one cause of death in Africa. I went with the women to the home of the family for what I can only compare to a visitation on Sunday afternoon, we sat outside for about an hour, there were close to 100 people in attendance. Men gathered at one side of the compound seeking shade under a tree. About 15 elderly women gathered in the funeral house, including my Ambuya (grandmother, she is the headman’s wife, Ambuya is a term of respect for all elderly here) The rest of the women sat in the shade of another small hut, with a few inside. The mother of the child was in this hut that I sat in front of, and she wept aloud and kept repeating a few things especially, “pa fupi, pa fupi, pa fupi,” indicating her distress over the short life of this child. The women that had been in the funeral hut came out and washed their hands and reentered, I can only assume they helped prepare the body – this was not explained to me. Shortly after this occurred, as if by some signal unbeknown to me all the women began weeping and wailing. It sent a chill down my spine, and even a few tears despite the fact that I did not have any connections. Some women guided the mother out of the hut behind me to another hut on the compound as she continued her chants of distress and stumbled to maintain her balance. The wailing faded after a few minutes, and I followed as I was directed when it was time to leave. The next morning I was again brought with the women to the same compound, this time we sat next to the funeral house and the men were in their same location. When we arrived, there were a number of people at the home already, per their traditions I think some stayed through the night. As we approached I could still hear the same woman making various outcries, her voice was hoarse like she had carried on throughout the night, if I didn’t recognize it, I would have identified her sobs as a goat baying. Over the course of the next hour and a half people gathered, various people – primarily women went in and out of the home, and bit by bit members of various churches comprised a choral group and members of the crowd softly joined their tender melodies. Most came in everyday attire, some of the men wore a suit jacket, some of the women wore a chitenje that they may wear to church on Sundays, indicating their denomination and a small number of women wore a black skirt, white top and black headscarf – which I think indicated they were women in the church group of the family hosting the funeral. I heard some nails being hammered inside the house, sealing the coffin. Then we all stood when four men brought a wood stretcher and placed it in front of the home, we sat back down, the crowd was getting large so we had made more or less a circle by this point and the minister came to the center with two bowls, placing one in front of the women and one by the men to collect an offering for the family. He said a few words, then passed the Bible to another man who spoke, and a third who lead a prayer. The choir began singing again and we stood as people began coming out of the funeral home, I wish now that I had counted how many people came out of this tiny hut. Not to make light of such a solemn event, but I think these Zambian women could put a clown car at a circus to shame, I had no idea how many more people were there! They sat and mourned on the ground for a few minutes while the choir sang and some babies were crying, it was an interesting mix of sounds, my eyes caught a dog laying on the ground attempting to shut out the noise by covering its ears. I should mention that the only children in attendance were those that still need to breast feed, they were slung on the backs of their mothers and I could not help thinking they are the same agement of that of the funeral we were attending, the life of a child here is watched very carefully until they reach the age of 5 as they are very susceptible to disease. Some men went into the house and collected the casket and placed it on a reed mat on the stretcher and we all began the procession to the graveyard. I want to say there were 300-400 people in attendance, I was in about the middle of the crowd and we walked along the side of the village a few kilometers to the graveyard, all the while singing continued. We formed a circle around the plot, surrounded by many other graves, very few tombstones had been fashioned by concrete, the majority had a broken clay pot marking their location. The casket was lowered into the hole and a man stepped in as the reed mat was cut in half and the stretcher was disassembled, placing those items in as well before the family shoveled the soil over, a few separate groups took part in this. When the plot was covered, the same man that had stepped into the grave to place the items came forward to wash his hands in the same bucket the women had used the day prior, then he turned it over and cracked it with an ax, all was silent (the singing had been going since we started the procession) After a few minutes the minister said a prayer, and we turned to solemnly walk back home. All this walking gave me a lot of time to think and reflect. I know for a fact that in two years of living here I will never truly understand what it feels like to be Zambian, but I can do my part to participate in events like this and absorb as much as I can so that I can relate to them on some level of understanding. That being said, my perspective on sorrow is permanently changed, and I will probably never look at a funeral the same way again. There is no way for me to bring the sights and sounds to life for you as a reader, but I hope you found some gem of insight in my experience at a funeral and burial.