An old man's funeral

September 29^th—

Victorine's father, the man with the feather in his ear, died last night.  I remember thinking the other day that he would probably die while I was here.  They took him to the doctor yesterday because his stomach was bothering him.  He told Victorine and I before that that he wasn't feeling well, hurting all over, in his joints especially.  He had lost weight,  so that his skin hung on his shoulders, shiny and taut from the weight of all the rest of his skin pulling down on itself.  They told me yesterday that he was sick but that it wasn't serious—just an IV drip.  

I went over to their house by myself this morning, as everyone with whom I would normally go to such an event is part of that family and was already there. Justine, Victorine's sister, this old man's daughter, was despondent and bleary eyed, lost.  Deni, Victorine's brother, was digging the huge grave with a dozen other men, burying big tree pillars in the ground to make a hangar.  I saw Micheline first, Victorine's sister, and wished I had more words to tell her how sorry I was.  I kicked off my sandals and went into the house where he laid on a gaudy green plastic mat, a hand woven blanket covering his long form, and the smell of parfum hanging on the air to cover up another smell. 

I could see the shape of his nose through the blanket, which made me think of his droopy eyes above it, sagging with age, and his ears being tickled methodically with a feather shaft, much to my amusement.  His wife sat beside him, her ethnic scars, normally visible all over her face, now hidden in the dim light of the room. She emitted sighs as if trying to figure out how to deal with this.  I wondered how long they had been married

—it could easily have been over 50 years, beginning before Burkina Faso was even Burkina Faso.  I already felt teary eyed and choked up before going in their house, but as soon as I saw Victorine, I started to shake uncontrollably and only barely got out a “Fo” and “Alla ka heneyala” (Sorry and May Alla give him a cool grave), before I couldn’t speak.  I felt my face twisting and twitching in the deluge of tears and I felt acutely embarrassed and somehow presumptious to cry here, as if I, as an outsider, could be “in” enough to feel such real remorse over the death of this old man whose name I don’t even know. 

I remembered the old man in Mali who told me that the death of a really old person is a loss to the whole community, a wealth of knowledge like a library, suddenly gone.  I thought of a huge old tree with thousands of rings in its trunk, cracking as its sinews and fibers snapped apart brittley, and crashing with a rumble on the forest floor.

Follow-up

Who knew what a rockin’ party this funeral would turn out to be?! The first two days were solemn with lots of tears and blessings.  Hundreds of people streamed in from all over Burkina Faso to pay their respects and give blessings to Victorine’s family.  But that doesn’t mean they didn’t also throw down.  Dozens of animals must have been slaughtered this week, a hundred of kilos of rice consumed, thousands of blobs of to.  Victorine’s family bought beer, fanta, dolo (local made millet beer), sopal (a really gross liquor that’s like fire going down your throat). 

 I think I drank my weight in dolo this week, really.  I kept accidently getting drunk.  I was waiting for lunch to be ready, so I was of course taking up all the offers of a free calabash of dolo to entertain myself (and others, admittedly).  Three calabashes into waiting on Wednesday, and I found myself chasing the headcook with a stick, telling her to get to work, "Everyone's hungry!" I hollered, to peals of laughter all around.  It didn’t take long for her to snatch that stick out of my hand and start pointing it in my direction (don’t worry, all in good fun, no battle wounds to speak of). 

I would take a little sieste to sleep of the dolo effects at 3pm after finally eating some riz gras (kind of like Spanish rice) and then not waking up until 5pm—by then the day is almost done!  So, I walked down to give my blessings and say hi at the funeral, only to be offered another calabash of dolo.  Drunk again! Damnit! How does this keep happening?! But who can say no at a funeral?! Not me.  Clearly.

The idea behind all the merriment is that this old man lived a full long life, something that deserves celebration.  In the states, the big expenses of a funeral (I believe) are buying a place for the departed in the soil, a box to set inside that place, a stone to mark the place, and a reception for friends and family.  Here—it’s the reception that costs all the money.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for hundreds of people for over a week.  Whew.

Anyway, I’m hoping for a more sober week. But only sort of.