Monday, December 12, 2011

Funerals drive Kenyans crazy!



SOPHIA KHAKASA laughs at the comedy of Kenyan funerals where mourners show off, gossip and drink through bombastic eulogies
Kenyans go crazy for the wrong reasons when someone dies. It is like the spirit of the dead conjures up madness and makes normal people lose their heads.
Today’s funeral is no longer a solemn occasion where people mourn the dead. Grief is now a thing of the past and has been replaced by a crazy thing called ‘behaviours’.
Funerals are these days an occasion to show off one’s wealth, clothes and might, a time for manicure and pedicure, stylish hair cuts, three-piece black suits and bow ties, gigantic black goggles, bottles of mineral water, alcohol and a motor show for who drives the best car. And since the dead cannot see, this great show is for the living.
It is at funerals that eulogies about schools people never went to are created, companies people never
SOPHIA KHAKASA laughs at the comedy of Kenyan funerals where mourners show off, gossip and drink through bombastic eulogies
worked for and ‘fake relatives’, who are naturally doctors, engineers, teachers and other PhD holders in fields like aeronautical engineering, authentic methodology, and non-existent flights to countries the deceased never stepped in are conjured.
Witchdoctor’s dungeon
Even someone who dies in a Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru hospital or at a witchdoctor’s dungeon, is reported to have died in London, Germany or the US.
But even those who die abroad, including top Kenyan Government officials, never escape this madness. Medicine men demand to travel to the death spot; to tap the shadow of the dead man and bring it back home to join the body for burial and hound the enemy who bewitched the village son or daughter. Naturally, it would be quite helpful if this little charade were carried out at the expense of the bereaved family, thank you.
Recently, a hair stylist in Nairobi’s Central Business District died, only for the family and other mourners to get embarrassed at the burial in western Kenya.
The family had indicated in the eulogy that their daughter owned a ‘big’ salon in Nairobi and employed over 50 beauticians. But by a strange twist of fate, a well-fed bleached woman arrived in the homestead wailing and eulogising Tabitha, her ‘employee’.
"Uuwi," she wailed.
"What killed Taby, my best worker! She was excellent at braiding weaves. She was so talented in putting chemical in people’s hair. Where will I get customers? Uwiii!" Tabitha’s boss wailed as she dramatically ran around the homestead.
The master of ceremony was so impressed by her antics that even though the speeches were over, he allowed her to address mourners. That was when she spilled the beans that Tabitha was one of her staff.
To save an embarrassing situation, the pastor quickly shouted, "Let us pray," as the bemused crowd murmured in protest wanting to hear more about Tabitha’s ‘company’.
Embarrassment
Other testimonies are so outrageously fake that one is often forced to stifle a laugh or just look down in embarrassment.
At one such funeral in Webuye, a widow proudly showed off a white dry handkerchief and told the crowd," I am born again. I have not shed a tear since my husband died because my tears have been washed away by the blood of the Lamb."
She further testified that for all the 50 years of their marriage, her husband had not as much as wagged a finger in her face, leave alone touch her. Yet many mourners knew their home was an Afghanistan of sorts. He not only frequently terrorised her but had also at one point broken her arm!
But it gets crazier. Word has it that some single women diligently pore over the obituary pages of the local dailies.
You can see them with a notebook and a biro, filling in details of who has died and where, where funeral meetings are being held, what kind of family the dead comes from, which mortuary is involved and the burial date.
Such women are particularly keen on well off men who lose their wives. The vultures exploit this gold mine by showing up at the widower’s house and passing themselves off as a close friend of the late wife. They befriend his relatives, wash the man’s clothes, scrub dishes, tenderly kiss the children and plead with the widower to eat.
The relatives get so impressed that they recommend the woman as a potential wife even before the real wife is buried. For such women, this is the right time to pull a pastor Chris Ojigbani and win a husband — a rich husband.
But the extent to which Kenyans fete the dead can be outrageous. Some people will neglect barefooted parents in the village for decades. But when the old folks die, they come home and bury them in expensive coffins, designer suits and shoes.
In one bizarre incident, a political activist kept his father’s remains in the morgue for over a month. He needed time to construct a new house for his father, one for himself and a series of permanent houses for his permanently inebriated brothers. ‘Big people’ were coming for the funeral and he didn’t want to be embarrassed, he needed to look cool.
Perhaps that is why the latest trend at funerals today is the ‘new look’ in huge black goggles or shades where everyone looks like a gangster in an Italian movie. The bigger the goggles, the cooler you are. The goggles, a show of sophistication, cost between Sh5,000 to Sh100,000 depending on the size of your pocket.
But the big goggles are never for hiding tears, but massive hangovers. For some reason, Kenyans can’t bury a friend or relative when sober.
Yet despite all these crazy ‘behaviours’, nothing beats the antics of professional mourners. Hundreds of youth are spreading kazi kwa vijana to funerals. In some of the public hospitals, the mourners hang around like vultures, waiting to feast on the wings of death.
Gossip corner
In order to survive, the ‘mourners for hire’ aggressively approach the bereaved and ask them if they need someone to wail, mow like a cow, meow like a cat, or bark like a dog. Professional fees range from Sh20 to Sh500.
It might, however, shock you that most popular spot at the funeral party is the gossip corner where mourners discuss the bereaved family: Who got married to an alcoholic, which daughter is divorced, which daughter cannot give birth, which son has only daughters, which child is a drunkard, who has HIV, who dropped out of school, who is too proud to speak mother tongue — the list is endless.
For this class of people, the most important thing is be seen and the whole ceremony is spent chatting beneath umbrellas, catching up with old relatives and friends and fiddling with expensive mobile phones.
Pastors on the other hand are among the greatest beneficiaries of funerals. The success of the funeral depends on them as they determine whether the bereaved was a member of the church, paid tithe or gave donations for the work of the kingdom through harambees. Lest you forget, they also need to pray for cows that are slaughtered for mourners.
Juicy parts of the slaughtered cow are, therefore, kept aside for them. Their food is also special because it’s not prepared by sinners, but by themselves. After the burial, together with the choir and the mothers’ union’s high command, they retreat to a special, most often the cosiest home in the compound, for lunch and drinks.
And all this time, if the departed is a man, his closest male cousins and friends silently eye his widow, wondering at what point they will exploit her loneliness and lecherously crawl into her bed.

No comments:

Post a Comment