In Ghana this summer
Went to the funeral of some bloke's grandmother, just to see what it would be like. Not what one would call a somber affair: everybody visits the body for a minute, goes out again and sits down.
Outside there are loads of chairs, a church choir, a band of drummers, several hundred people, good food, a DJ and the mourners. The guy who took me later said: "I only go to the funerals because I am allowed to get drunk there".
It's incredible: everyone is dancing around the coffin which is now set up i the middle of the courtyard, the music is happy and fast, the choir sings some sad songs, the sister runs to the coffin and collapses in tears, is dragged away, more dancing around the coffin and finally it gets taken to the grave. Of course, the village doesn'T have a hearse so they use the ambulance, a battered old Tata van with blue lights on top and no door for the boot.

Seeing the body wasn't anything special and didn't affect me at all for some reason. Maybe it had been the two drinks of very powerful local gin beforehand that had numbed the pain...
( morrybyte made a subtle namechange at, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 12:45, Reply)