aripeskoe
(living in ghana)
02 December 2006
It's Funeral Day
It's Saturday, so that means funerals. I have yet to attend a funeral in Ghana, but I see them happening all over. And I've talked to Peace Corps volunteers who have been to funerals, so it's sort of kind of not really like I've been to one.
The biggest difference between funerals in Ghana and America is that they don't seem to be sad occasions here. I don't doubt that people here mourn, but funerals are not the place for it. Funerals are celebrations of the life that was lived and, as far as I have seen, are characterized by the following:
- Dress - Funeral attendees generally wear either black, red, or both. If the person lived a particularly long life, I think the custom is to wear white. There are also funeral t-shirts. Funeral t-shirts usually have a big picture of the deceased and generally say something like, "In loving memory of Kwame Appiah Danquah 1956 - 2006." They are often black with red writing.
- Posters - Funerals often take place weeks or even months after the death. This allows for plenty of time to promote the upcoming funeral around town. I don't find funeral posters to be particularly good advertising because the posters generally have way too much information. In addition to a picture of the deceased and a bio, it seems that everyone who has ever met this person needs to have their names on the poster. The relatives, neighbors, friends, pastors, etc. All this makes for too much text on a little poster. These posters are all over town.
- Music - Anything, just play it loud! I think the size of the speakers at a Ghanaian funeral is a status symbol. Ghanaians often stack huge speakers or put several large speakers right next to each other. Ironically, the quality of the speakers is awful, so it's usually just a loud noisy staticky mess, presumably with the sound from each speaker interfering with the sound from the others. Funeral music ranges from relgious music to 50 Cent to the local popular music, which is sort of a combination of rap and hip-hop.
- Tents - It's not an official function in Ghana unless you have tents. Tents are generally arranged in a rectangle, leaving a large awkward, open space in the middle. This is how it is at graduations, weddings, etc, basically any serious function in Ghana has tents. (By tents I mean what you might put up in America in a large backyard if you were having people over on a summer day for some sort of party, not the kind you would sleep in.) Every function in Ghana also has plastic chairs under the tents.
- Timing - All day and all night long...A few days ago there was a funeral on my street. The music continued all night and into the next morning (although the music was a bit mellower in the morning).
- Dancing - There is dancing at church and there is dancing at funerals. From what I've seen, children are often the ones dancing while everyone else is off getting drunk.
- Drinking - Yes, please, but first spill some for the gods, as is often the custom. Local drinks are called bitters. They're drinkable, but I wouldn't recommend it.
- Transportation - Ghanaians generally overpack vehicles, and because funerals are the town's biggest weekly parties and transportation is expensive, funerals are no exception. Often, large flatbed trucks are stuffed with people, some barely hanging on. People riding in these large funeral-mobiles are often loud and many seem like they have already spent the morning drinking in preparation for more drinking at the funeral.
Funerals are a booming industry here. Life expectancy is 56 and the average woman is still having more than 4 kids. That means there are a lot of people here and they're dying young. So there are funerals all the time. Saturday is the big day for funerals presumably because Sunday is for church and the other days are working days if you're fortunate enough to have a job.
Other than the funerals themselves, the most visible signs of funerals are people making caskets. They're everywhere, and the caskets seem to be about the fanciest thing that most people will ever own. In Accra, there is one part of the capital that manufactures and sells "novelty" caskets for people who want to be buried in a giant rooster, cell phone, gun or bus, to name a few examples...
Addendum #1: There are only 2 weeks of teaching left in the term. The three week break starts December 15, during which I will be welcoming my first American guests to Ghana. Unfortunately, they're my parents (just kidding!).
¶ 12:58 PM
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Wait...are you kidding that your parents are coming, or are you kidding that it's unfortunate?
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# posted by 
: December 06, 2006 4:43 PM
: December 06, 2006 4:43 PM<< Home