It's hardly news but it's been news to me. Ghanaians are very, very big on funerals...bigger than i know, bigger than i've ever seen. You don't have to be living here very long without figuring that out.
I've got one more year...i should be able to understand/learn more about why. (hmmmm...i mean..one more year in Ghana!)
so, yesterday, i attended my first formal funeral..as in I was invited to attend, previously i've 'seen' but floated round the edge.
I've come to understand that families will put themselves in serious debt to pay for funerals; that bodies lie in morgues for months, even years, perhaps, before they are buried..for financial reasons.
I've come to know ..though not to understand ..that people/families are members of funeral clubs which operate like susu's?..such that money is 'saved' on a regular basis within a group to pay for funerals.
In a small community, issues over funeral financing are very, very political.
When one is invited to a funeral, one is expected to make a cash contribution towards the funeral expenses. It seems to operate like paying tribute at a Mafia wedding. People stop off at a nearby house.....or at a table and an envelope is passed over. Like a Romanian wedding though not such a celebratory occasion (the giving).
The funerals then take place over a number of days..and in fact, there can be multiple funerals occurring in different parts of the country e.g. Accra and the deceased's rural hometown.
I do not yet understand the sequence of events that occurs over the three of four days of a funeral. Some days are celebratory, some days involve the delivery of the body from the morgue...not, it should be noted, in a coffin, but wrapped...let's leave it at that.
There seems to be a wake involved but the Saturday is the big day. That is the big day for celebration and paying one's respects.
It's not yet clear who attends but it's as if ...each community/area has their dance/church/funeral groups and no matter who the deceased is..they will be there in their finery..and indeed it is.
So Saturday is the big dancing, singing/chanting, drumming day...and the big day for paying one's respects.
The burial itself is a low-key event..on the Sunday?...and there are rules about where the body is kept and who can view. And no hallowed ground hang-ups here either.
Nope, i don't understand on what basis the dancing/drumming groups perform..but the groups have a significant identity...and 'outfits'.
Overall the dancing and drumming is not choreographed..just a succession of free-form happenings but eventually after each 'group' has had their say it begins to disintegrate.
And so I was formally invited to attend my first Ghanaian funeral this weekend.
It was for the mother of a friend of mine and took place in a small community over on the other side of the Keta Lagoon- as in, difficult to get there from here! Atiavi is probably about the same size as Whuti...but it's the end of the road-this side the Lagoon. As compared to Whuti which does sit astride the W-E highway. It took six hops to get there..tro's and taxi's...and three and a half hours. A ride like that gets slower and slower..and oddly,more and more expensive and with longer and longer waits between hops as one goes on..tho, i think the total cost was less than 8 cedis i.e. $5.50.
When i arrived, things were in full-swing...a large space with covered enclosures on each side where different groups sat between 'performances' and then a couple of satellite 'performance' spaces.
I was invited and expected and so after a short while, i was invited to attend 'Madame Millicent', my friend, and taken to a nearby house.
Very quiet..ah, funereal.
I do not understand anyone's role here..not mine, not the dancing groups, not Millicent's..for example, i was told that she could not go to the house where her mother's body lay?
After duly paying my respects I was given an 'escort' for the ceremonies who helped and explained and yes, of course, it is OK to take pictures.
Except when it isn't.
clearly I was ... and felt, at odds culturally...it is very different and although i was invited, i'm still the yevu..and the yevu with the (somewhat obvious) camera.
Ultimately i felt uncomfortable .. i was part of something i did not understand. i didn't feel threatened but i was observed, watched ...people wonder..who, why? My 'escort' said that everything was fine..perhaps i couldn't sit there but it was fine to take pictures, really.
After a while i saw things I had never seen before ...they were explained to me as women who were possessed. They acted very strangely..maniacally ..and if i hadn't been somewhat intimidated by it all, i might have seen the funny side!
If you look at the women's costumes...and there are many, many more women than men present..you'll see that they're not good for running in ..and many of these women are past their athletic best. And so to see these women running across the dancing/performance space is..scary!
But possessed by the devil they will run at each other, their friends, like NFL linemen; they will seize each other like Sumo wrestlers; they will beat and gnash and wail, etc; and they will pour buckets of water on themselves; they will hurl them selves upon their seated friends and pass out to be held up by others.
Yup...new to me and scary, almost intimidating in that they seemed out of control.
I pretty much stopped taking pictures for a while partly because I felt intimidated but mostly because i felt as if I was intruding.
It was an odd experience for me..unsettling but educational...integration in any real sense is really impossible but this was how i always saw it anyway...and this was just a recognition that old beliefs still run very strong
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