Funerals

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