Since February when I last posted, I have been busy having fun and working. I was able to spend a weekend at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary in Serowe, only hours away from my village. I saw rhinos and other game, as well as the royal burial ground of the Khama family, with two of the Botswana presidents. My fellow Peace Corps volunteer and I also visited a wonderful prekindergarten school program for about 60 orphans and vulnerable children run by an interesting "coloured" family who lost a son to HIV/AIDS. I also heard how coloureds were discriminated against prior to independence.
Then next trip was a fascinating trip to see the very diverse city of Cape Town in South Africa, where the world cup will be held starting June 11 and the following two weeks.(An Africa country is not expected to win the cup, but I wish I were going to be in Botswana to watch it.) Besides having a huge working and retail waterfront complex, Robben Island where Mandela was jailed, and an old slave quarters in the city, there are beautiful gardens and beaches around. For those who know the film critic, Roger Ebert, he evidently went to university here.
Besides playing, I have been organizing some primary school visits with my PACT club and coordinating a training with other volunteers for a leadership training during March,the month of Youth Against AIDS.
Peace Corps has also given us lots reports to write up before we leave. So as we work on that, this very day, 57 new Peace Corps volunteers have arrived in Molepolole for two months of language, cultural and technical training. And so the cycle continues. When they finish training, they will take our places at schools, nongovernmental organizations, clinics and HIV/AIDS prevention councils.
And as I close, I am getting ready to go to Gaborone to assist the organizers with
Botswana's first major world class marathon on Sunday, April 18th. It should be a fun event. Some Peace Corps are running and others are helping.
So enough for now. I hope to post some photos at some point! Do post comments and questions if you like.
Friday, April 16, 2010
A Celebration of Life
For the past two years I have been living with three generations of a family. And now there is actually a fourth generation, age three toddling around here for the past three months. The grandfather, age 79, Rra Evelyn, had been treated for cancer of the liver for the past year until November when the family was told the treatment was no longer effective at stopping the spread of the disease. The alternative medications were very toxic, so the family decided to put his life in God’s hands. He was tall and lanky with a kindly face. Being retired, he enjoyed visits to his “lands” where he had some cattle and grew some corn and other vegetables. He had slowed down over time as the cancer took its toll. On Monday, the day after Easter, he stopped breathing, after weeks of being bedridden with lots of visitors coming to say farewell and saying prayers. I was home in my small house, since it was a public holiday. The grandmother, Mma Evelyn, had her grandson summoned me. I entered the bedroom and sat there to say my goodbyes as news spread and people began arriving to say their goodbyes.
The preparations for the funeral began immediately. My day room was transformed into storage for their living room furniture to make room for friends and relatives to visit and also a sleeping room for the family overflow. Large numbers of plastic chairs began arriving that afternoon. Cell phones were busy. People who had visited on Easter began returning. Later in the afternoon a covered pickup truck arrived. Rra Evelyn was carried out in blankets to go first to the hospital to be officially pronounced dead and then off to the local mortuary.
I left for Peace Corps business in the capital for several days, returning on Friday to find two two large tents erected in the front yard for evening prayers and services and another tent in the back to house the carcasses of numerous cows. These tents were very useful for the unusual rain we have been having in April as well as the hot sun during the day. As I wrote they were being disassembled on Sunday having served their purpose for many services throughout the week.
When I arrived home on Friday, there were people collecting all over the family compound. Large cast iron pots were cooking on different fires cooking for the up-coming events. I changed into my Setswana traditional dress to head of the local church for a final service as his coffin would be stopping there on its way back home. About 5pm the hearse was met by church members and friends. Friends carried the large wooden coffin into the front of the church where it was draped with a cloth bearing the church’s name. About 40 people attended with the men seated in one area and the women in others. An older minister assisted by some younger ones conducted the service, saying prayers and reading passages in Setswana from the Bible. By Botstwana standards it was short, less than an hour, before the coffin was opened and closed briefly before being carried out. I rode with some family members behind the hearse. It was a small cortege. It stopped by his old family home where he grew up. A long line of older men were lined up and seated in front of the local kgotla (traditional meeting place). The coffin was carried out for a final visit and prayers. Then we proceeded back to the family compound. We were greeted by a large gathering of close to 75 for a final welcome. As the coffin was carried into the house, his fifteen year old granddaughter and twenty year old grandson broke down into uncontrollable sobs. The finality of his death had hit home.
While people gathered in front yard, others were cooking in the back. The prayers were given by both men and women. Women again were seated separately from the men. Hymns from the church were called out by page number. There was no music, just the words were written. About 12 ladies in the choir came from the church dressed in white hats and jackets. The songs, all in Setswana and sung a cappella, were sung by all at times one person leading with the words of the lesser known hymns. After the prayers, a thick, sorghum porridge was served with a stew of beef intestines. Plates were passed in a human chain of women from the back to those seated in the front. As people finished their plates were taken, washed and reused. I eyed some phaphathas, a traditional kind of English muffin cooking on the open fire. A woman asked for one, so I scooped some up to serve, but was told to put them down. They were not to be served now.
Custom has it that friends and relatives stay up all night to keep vigil and pay their last respects. I was exhausted from my travels and after helping with drying dishes, opted for sleeping. Yet about midnight I was awakened by what seemed like a long spontaneous service of heartfelt prayers said with passion and grief by men and women. These prayers were alternated with lots of well know hymns sung by all. It followed the practice of traditional choirs in Botswana. Both men and women sing low rhythmic religious songs while standing and stepping using several small shuffling motions with their bodies! At times these informal and formal services dip into the deeply spiritual and mystical veins of the Setswana culture. Since the session was taking places just a few yards from my house, I dosed in and out of sleep with this beautiful music in the background.
I woke early as the plastic chairs were reorganized into rows for the morning service. As I rolled out the door I was handed a colored program with pictures of Rra Evelyn, his background, and the day’s events. I shivered wishing I had a traditional blanket that most of the older women have been wearing throughout the night as they sat around the various fires. About sunrise, the casket was carried out of the house. Male family members and friends talked about his life. Then women in the family got up to read the notes on the flower arrangement. The casket was loaded into the hearse to wind through the neighborhood to a nearby graveyard. Here the service was conducted by the church with the choir leading the call and response hymns. We all watched as the casket is lowered. The family threw dirt on the coffin. Then men took turns shoveling the dirt into the grave until an iron fence was put on top to cover the grave. The last talk was by the local chief, called a kgosi, who happens to be the father of the host family I stayed with when I arrived two years ago.
Back at the family compound, all guests are fed a meal of well cooked shredded meat, a local favorite dish, well cooked corn, and a small amount gravy and cabbage salad. There were over hundred people, but the serving goes quickly. These traditions were the same everywhere. Families and friends helped each other with the costs, cooking and dishes. Everyone had a role. People then drifted away during the rest of the day. I assumed the event was over, but the next day there was another smaller and informal morning service followed by tea and again in the afternoon a similar event followed by a full meal. The cow, which was standing in the trailer out back, was no longer there. In total, four cows and several goats gave their lives for the feasts.
As the tent came down and the chairs were stacked for the last time, I remember the day almost two years ago when I first met the family after a ceremony in which they placed a permanent gravestone on their only son’s grave. He also had died after a long illness at home as the result of HIV/AIDS.
The preparations for the funeral began immediately. My day room was transformed into storage for their living room furniture to make room for friends and relatives to visit and also a sleeping room for the family overflow. Large numbers of plastic chairs began arriving that afternoon. Cell phones were busy. People who had visited on Easter began returning. Later in the afternoon a covered pickup truck arrived. Rra Evelyn was carried out in blankets to go first to the hospital to be officially pronounced dead and then off to the local mortuary.
I left for Peace Corps business in the capital for several days, returning on Friday to find two two large tents erected in the front yard for evening prayers and services and another tent in the back to house the carcasses of numerous cows. These tents were very useful for the unusual rain we have been having in April as well as the hot sun during the day. As I wrote they were being disassembled on Sunday having served their purpose for many services throughout the week.
When I arrived home on Friday, there were people collecting all over the family compound. Large cast iron pots were cooking on different fires cooking for the up-coming events. I changed into my Setswana traditional dress to head of the local church for a final service as his coffin would be stopping there on its way back home. About 5pm the hearse was met by church members and friends. Friends carried the large wooden coffin into the front of the church where it was draped with a cloth bearing the church’s name. About 40 people attended with the men seated in one area and the women in others. An older minister assisted by some younger ones conducted the service, saying prayers and reading passages in Setswana from the Bible. By Botstwana standards it was short, less than an hour, before the coffin was opened and closed briefly before being carried out. I rode with some family members behind the hearse. It was a small cortege. It stopped by his old family home where he grew up. A long line of older men were lined up and seated in front of the local kgotla (traditional meeting place). The coffin was carried out for a final visit and prayers. Then we proceeded back to the family compound. We were greeted by a large gathering of close to 75 for a final welcome. As the coffin was carried into the house, his fifteen year old granddaughter and twenty year old grandson broke down into uncontrollable sobs. The finality of his death had hit home.
While people gathered in front yard, others were cooking in the back. The prayers were given by both men and women. Women again were seated separately from the men. Hymns from the church were called out by page number. There was no music, just the words were written. About 12 ladies in the choir came from the church dressed in white hats and jackets. The songs, all in Setswana and sung a cappella, were sung by all at times one person leading with the words of the lesser known hymns. After the prayers, a thick, sorghum porridge was served with a stew of beef intestines. Plates were passed in a human chain of women from the back to those seated in the front. As people finished their plates were taken, washed and reused. I eyed some phaphathas, a traditional kind of English muffin cooking on the open fire. A woman asked for one, so I scooped some up to serve, but was told to put them down. They were not to be served now.
Custom has it that friends and relatives stay up all night to keep vigil and pay their last respects. I was exhausted from my travels and after helping with drying dishes, opted for sleeping. Yet about midnight I was awakened by what seemed like a long spontaneous service of heartfelt prayers said with passion and grief by men and women. These prayers were alternated with lots of well know hymns sung by all. It followed the practice of traditional choirs in Botswana. Both men and women sing low rhythmic religious songs while standing and stepping using several small shuffling motions with their bodies! At times these informal and formal services dip into the deeply spiritual and mystical veins of the Setswana culture. Since the session was taking places just a few yards from my house, I dosed in and out of sleep with this beautiful music in the background.
I woke early as the plastic chairs were reorganized into rows for the morning service. As I rolled out the door I was handed a colored program with pictures of Rra Evelyn, his background, and the day’s events. I shivered wishing I had a traditional blanket that most of the older women have been wearing throughout the night as they sat around the various fires. About sunrise, the casket was carried out of the house. Male family members and friends talked about his life. Then women in the family got up to read the notes on the flower arrangement. The casket was loaded into the hearse to wind through the neighborhood to a nearby graveyard. Here the service was conducted by the church with the choir leading the call and response hymns. We all watched as the casket is lowered. The family threw dirt on the coffin. Then men took turns shoveling the dirt into the grave until an iron fence was put on top to cover the grave. The last talk was by the local chief, called a kgosi, who happens to be the father of the host family I stayed with when I arrived two years ago.
Back at the family compound, all guests are fed a meal of well cooked shredded meat, a local favorite dish, well cooked corn, and a small amount gravy and cabbage salad. There were over hundred people, but the serving goes quickly. These traditions were the same everywhere. Families and friends helped each other with the costs, cooking and dishes. Everyone had a role. People then drifted away during the rest of the day. I assumed the event was over, but the next day there was another smaller and informal morning service followed by tea and again in the afternoon a similar event followed by a full meal. The cow, which was standing in the trailer out back, was no longer there. In total, four cows and several goats gave their lives for the feasts.
As the tent came down and the chairs were stacked for the last time, I remember the day almost two years ago when I first met the family after a ceremony in which they placed a permanent gravestone on their only son’s grave. He also had died after a long illness at home as the result of HIV/AIDS.
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