Rites of Passage

Here is another post from Howard following the latest Global Venture:

Death is reflected in different ways depending on the cultural & religious practices unique to that community.

In Kenya funerals of the Christian religions take place on Saturdays.

Priests both Roman Catholic & Anglican travel the length of the country to bury their dead in the place of birth or their home town on a Saturday.

When interviewing priests of both the Catholic & Anglican faiths the concept of cremation & burial in municipal cemeteries is usually unheard of. They couldn’t understand why funerals in Europe take place on weekdays. To them Saturdays is the most convenient day as people are less likely to be working on a Saturday. They were also very disapproving of cremation that is standard practice in most parts of Europe.

Apart from the Sikh & Hindu community cremation is unique to them and not normally practised by other religions including Christianity.
The Kenyan people have a very matter of fact approach to death & there way of dealing with it is very different to that of European traditions.

The death of a loved one is very much a fragmented (DIY) Do it yourself arrangement. Unlike in the United Kingdom where a funeral director takes care of all the arrangements.

On weekdays in the local market you will see carpenters making coffins along the roadside. A practice unheard of in many parts of the western world.

On Fridays the municipal mortuaries are open to the public to collect their loved ones. However there is a restriction. If the family don’t have the money to pay the mortuary fees they are charged rent for each successive day the deceased remains in the mortuary. This often means they cannot be buried the following Saturday as planned.

Having overcome the obstacle of mortuary fees and your loved one being released from municipal refrigeration the process is still very complicated.

Whilst in Kisumu I witnessed many systems of primitive carriage for the conveyance of a coffin. Two of these included balancing a coffin on the crossbar of a bicycle or using a beer crate trolley. One of the priests I spoke to said it was not unusual to put the deceased on the roof rack of a car. For those that can afford it a hearse may be hired. An African hearse is not the same as we are accustomed to in Europe. Very practical they will use a Ford transit van. The seats are removed on one side to accommodate the coffin with the family sitting in what remaining seating space is available alongside.

Death is always a very emotional time for those intimately involved. It is very important that this taken into consideration by those directly & indirectly taking part. My experience in Kisumu was that the selling of a coffin was no different to the person on the next market stall who may be selling fruit & vegetables.

However in a country that is very poor materially they remain very strong in their Christian Faith. The African people approach death in a way that most Europeans couldn’t cope with. This is to their credit and shows how much we take for granted in the Western World.

Despite them being poor we have a lot to learn from them in a very materialistic world. What is important is that they never give up on their faith. They are very strong people both physically & spiritually.

Howard Marshall. Kisumu, Kenya. June/July 2009.