The day of funerals

Dec. 18, 2009

Dear friends and family,

I hope all is well and you are enjoying the holidays! I am at a
two-week 'in-service training' at the Peace Corps training camp
outside of Bamako after which I will go back to my village and
hopefully start my work in earnest. Some of the volunteers in my area
have organized a 4-day program where girls from the rural villages
will go to one of the larger cities to learn about professional
opportunities for women who complete school, so I'm really looking
forward to working on that. We are going to have an essay contest in
my village to determine which girls will go. Below is a description of
some things that have been going on in my village, Koyan.

Best,
Lauren



I was sitting one morning with my host family as they were sipping
ceri, the corn porridge they eat every morning, when my host Nfabilen
informed me that the young child of one of our neighbors had passed
away and that we would be going to the funeral that day, in fact that
minute. I rushed into my hut to try to find something respectable to
wear. The day was overcast and even cool. He and I walked together
down the cotton-bloom-lined path leading between our household,
Konibabugu (named for its founder and Nfabilen’s grandfather, Koniba),
and our neighbors’, Kefabugu (named for Koniba’s brother, Kefa). When
we arrived, a bunch of empty chairs were haphazardly placed around the
tree that shades most life there. The oldest man of the household was
sitting there and when Nfabilen went to sit down next to him, he
motioned for me to join. I decided, though, that this was a time to be
with the women.

I was brought into a dark, crowded room with a dirt floor, mud walls,
and a roof of thatch. A woman was sitting on a bed, crying
hysterically with her face in her hands. Another woman was seated next
to her, holding her hand and with her arm around the crying woman’s
shoulder. This was Ba, the woman whose baby had passed away. I was not
able to understand the cause of the child’s death, although the women
said he hadn’t been eating. When my eyes adjusted, I saw many of the
older women in my village. Over the course of the morning, many more
middle-aged women arrived. At first, some of the women were having a
vehement discussion I couldn’t understand but they eventually lapsed
into silence and the mother too stopped sobbing. We sat and sat for
hours, shifting our weight on the small wooden stools holding us up
and hearing the quiet benedictions of the women who entered the room.
Some women from my household had arrived and they eventually beckoned
for me to leave. As they left, each mumbled a long strain of
benedictions to the mother and I said the meager one I know, "May he
rest in peace."

Shortly after we arrived back at my house, my language tutor (the
local school's sixth grade teacher, Soungalo Jara) also arrived and we
started our Bambara lesson. As usual, various other family members and
children were coming and going, sitting around us, listening and
occassionally interjecting their comments. About halfway through, one
of the men said something I couldn't make out to Soungalo. Soungalo
then told me that they had just received some bad news: my host's
child in Bamako had died. I was completely dumbfounded: I had no idea
my host had another child in Bamako. As I asked questions, I learned
that my host had a second wife (the first, Sitan, had been living with
us in Koyan and I wrongfully assumed she was the only one) who had
been living with my host's brother, Ntossoma, in Bamako while her
child was undergoing operations at the hospital there. After this, we
continued our lesson. The strange thing was that my host went upon his
daily business as usual, going off to work in the garden, instead of
sitting with the other men of the village as had been done at the
funeral that morning. When I gave him the standard benediction, May he
rest in peace, he told me it was God's work and smiled at me. His
mother, Babo, and some of the older women of the village gathered in
Babo's house to sit. I went to sit with them and they asked me why I
wasn't talking. They started to joke with me, but I felt too sad to
joke. That night my host sat alone outside his house smoking
cigarettes and brewing tea under the stars.

Only later did I learn the cause of the child's death. My host's
brother, Ntossoma, works for the Peace Corps (he is the health
education program assistant) and speaks English. He came to visit
during the Muslim holiday of Eid and I asked him about the
circumstances of the death. He said that the child was born without an
anus and that after a number of operations, the child had finally
passed away at 11 months old. He also informed me that these kinds of
malformations can be caused by malnutrition in the mother and that the
child's mother, Ma, had gone to pre-natal counseling but had not acted
on the doctor's advice. He said that people here say when their
children pass away that it's God's work, but it is not God's work
since it is up to the people to listen to the doctor. The gap between
Ntossoma, who is educated, has a decent job, and lives a somewhat
Westernized life in Bamako (i.e. has only one wife and one child,
speaks both French and English) and his brother Nfabilen, who never
went to school, is a farmer, and lives in a rural village, is quite
remarkable.