Death as a Way of Life

A cemetery in the village. Some are marked
with large tombstones. Some are marked only
with the stones surrounding the burial plot.

Although death is a common occurrence here, it is only just recently that it has crept into my close circle of contacts. Most of the reason is simply the amount of time I have now lived here. When I first arrived, I didn’t know anyone. Even if a distant relative passed away, my family would wave it off and say that there was no reason for me to trouble myself with attending the viewing or funeral. Now I know the people in my host family; I know my neighbors in the village; I know the families of the teachers at my school. Death is no longer something that can be waved off. And it is becoming clear how common of an occurrence it is. In the past month, three families that I know have had to cope with the passing of people whose lives were just getting started.

On the last Friday of October, the eldest son of one of the grade 5 and 6 teachers was found dead at his home. The details were a bit sketchy. I know that the boy was in his mid-twenties and was working to become a doctor at the local hospital in our shopping town. It appeared as though he had a heart attack, and we were told that he was found early in the morning by his girlfriend.

The teacher was obviously not in school on Friday, but we saw him the following Tuesday when we went to his home for the visiting. We all arrived at school as normal, but the students were dismissed at 11am after lunch had been served. The principal arranged for a minibus taxi to come and pick us all up and drive us nearly two hours away to his very deep rural home. Once we arrived, we were ushered into the house of the ancestors (all Zulu families have one of these) where the mother of the deceased was sitting on a mattress on the floor, against the wall, wrapped in a number of blankets, next to a lit candle. She was in mourning and would stay like this for a week. Other female members of the family would sit in the house with her during the day and even sleep with her at night. She would be brought meals and anything else that she needed until she left to attend the funeral on the following Saturday. As we entered the house, we sang songs of sorrow and grief and sat on mats laid out on the floor. Several teachers recited passages from the Bible and led the group in prayer. More songs and more prayers followed. I really couldn’t tell you what was being said, but it didn’t matter. The atmosphere was quite sad, as expected. When it was over, we went outside to pass along our condolences to the men in the family who sat in the shade under a tree. And then we moved to another house where a few chairs and more mats were set up and we were served a meal of rice, chicken, and some butternut: something that everyone is served when they come to pay their respects. We spent about 45 minutes to an hour total at the house before we re-boarded our transport and were on our way back to the village. It may seem odd that we shut down school for this, but Zulus place great importance on relationships, and to not make this visit would be considered extremely rude. It was certainly not pleasant, but it was an important way to show respect.

A mere one week later, the first Monday morning of November, I was stunned to learn that a young girl in grade 11 and cousin to my host family, committed suicide over the weekend. (Gruesome detail: here, nearly all suicides are by hanging.) What was worse, should that be possible, is that this was the second child of the family to commit suicide. An older brother took his life about two years earlier. The news was given to the principal of the secondary school (which is across the road) that morning by a relative of the deceased. The principal then relayed the message to our staff, since nearly every single teacher also knew the girl. The learners at our school were instructed to stay in their classrooms while all but one of the teachers walked with the teachers from the secondary school to the home of deceased in a nearby part of the village. During the 20-minute journey, I had a very insightful discussion with the principal of the secondary school about how Zulus traditionally respond to this tragedy. He explained that during the next week, family and friends would visit just as they would for any other death, to mourn the loss and to show their support. But after the funeral, no one would visit again until the family had been “cleansed” by an elder or traditional healer of the village. The cleansing will involve the slaughtering of a goat and a variety of rituals to rid the home of any spirits that might have caused this. When I asked for other details, he said that was all he knew because one would only have attended this ceremony if there was a suicide in the immediate family, and thankfully, that has never happened to him. Obviously, I hope it does not happen to me either. Our visit followed the same pattern as the previous visit, minus the food as there had not yet been time to prepare anything for visitors.

Just two weeks later, on the third Monday of November, an urgent staff meeting was called after morning assembly to let us know that the young adult daughter of one of our grade R teachers had passed away over the weekend. No one seemed interested in discussing the cause or details (it was not a heart attack and it was not suicide). She lived a few families down from me, and in the past two or three months, she was rarely seen because she had “terrible flu.” I would bet my life there was more to the story than that, but I don’t want to speculate. No matter what the cause of death, it was quite sad to attend a third wake in just over four weeks. As with the past two deaths, all of the teachers visited the house the next day to express our condolences and grieve with the family. It was quite sad. It does not get easier. And it will likely not be the last time.