Yesterday
(Friday) I noticed quite a lot of movement in one of the houses close to the
one I’m living in.
Those tents
are usually not there. There were a lot of people walking around and they
sounded quite busy.
In the afternoon I was taking a nap when I woke
up with the sound of African music: the funeral had started!
Funerals in Ghana are quite a big event. They
start on Friday and last the entire weekend. The mood is not at all what I’m
used to in a funeral. Here there is music all the time. When I say all the time
is literally all the time. Since Friday afternoon the drums and the African
music hasn´t stopped; not even at night!
When a person dies his/her body is kept in a
fridge for months or sometimes years. While the body is there the family has
the time to set up the funeral. If the house does not have the necessary
conditions to host a funeral then the family will paint it or do whatever it
takes to get those conditions; if the direct family does not have money then
there is always someone in the family (a cousin, a grandson) that has the money
and that will put the funeral in place. There is the incentive for this to
happen because then this person will be respected by everyone once everyone
will know that he/she was the one arranging the funeral. In the Ghanaian society,
respect is the most important thing.
The family tries to promote the funeral as much
as possible; even putting posters on the walls. This is the moment where
everyone gathers; relatives who live in Accra or even out of the country come
to the funeral. If by any change someone cannot go to the funeral he/she can
send someone to represent him/her. This is an event for hundreds of people. The
reason for this is again related to respect: the more people that go to a
funeral, the more respect the person who died had in life. In the end that’s
what it’s all about: respect.
Black is the formal color to use in a funeral
for the ones who were friends and supporters; the family usually wears black
and read. There is a lot of music, dancing, laughing and of course drinking. So
much drinking that Edem said “tonight a little girl will get pregnant” because
her parents will be too drunk to take care of them.
Food and drinks are served but not in an equal
way: the “have’s” (the people who have money) are better served than the “have
not’s” (people who have less money).
During these funerals there is a moment to make
donations - there is usually a queue to make them. A funeral is one of the biggest
forms of getting funds around here; thousands of cedis can be raised in a
funeral.
At some point the body leaves the house where
the funeral is being hosted and heads the place where the dead person was born
and another event is hosted there. If by any chance the body cannot go there
then someone will cut some of his/her nails, hair, eyebrows and pubic hairs.
All this is then taken to the place where the person was born and then buried.
28/07/2012
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