Three Funerals and a Wedding

So funny story. The weekend started with us crashing three funerals and a wedding and ended with us being toastmaster and photographer to the bride and groom. No, not an April Fools joke.

This being Easter week everything was pretty much shut down so we didn’t do much work project-wise. A quick background: we are currently living in Tubatse, South Africa, in a DI house five minutes from the project with a South African DI named Zama and our project leader is a very competent woman named Nondumiso.

Wednesday we were invited to spend the holiday weekend with Nondumiso and since we had no plans and I was dreading five days sitting in the DI house surrounded by nothing but dirt roads and the odd shop, we readily agreed. The catch: Nondumiso had to attend an unveiling in support of a friend in a remote village, which we were welcome to attend. We spent Thursday night in Makopane, a town with real shops and delicacies like pizza, whereupon which we discovered we were not only crashing a family funeral, we were also crashing a traditional wedding which was to be held that same day. Oh boy.

Unveilings are fairly common in South Africa. When someone dies, it is very expensive to both hold a funeral and pay for a proper headstone so oftentimes two or more years after the person has died, when the family can afford it, a service/celebration is held to unveil the headstone. In this case, as we found out upon arriving at our host Rosinha’s aunts house on Friday afternoon, a tent had been erected in the families front yard, a DJ was in full swing, and on the schedule for the next day was no less than three unveilings followed by a wedding. We spent an excruciatingly awkward Friday evening in the midst of a strangers family gathering, parked on the couch, watching soaps, playing with the children, the subjects of a combination of being largely ignored and fawned upon with generous hospitality, with smiles, handshakes, large plates of food, tea, and endless scones. Oh, and winter blankets being piled on us for despite the 75 degree weather everyone seemed to be freezing beneath winter coats.

Saturday the big day dawned before dawn with a wakeup knock at 5.30. The BOOM BOOM BOOM of the DJ which I had fallen asleep to was still going strong at 5.30. The unveilings seemed to be both a celebration of life and a way to remember with tears loved ones gone, although I know I missed a lot since I didn’t understand the spoken language. Trying to blend in and look inconspicuous, Brian and I were called out more than once and welcomed as if we were celebrities, all of which made us fairly uncomfortable, especially when they made us stand up to receive a round of applause for reasons unbeknownst to us. Seriously. At the cemetery, each of the three unveilings took place with words and impromptu songs started by one person and taken up by the collective. The hymns sung here are not like the ones I am familiar with, they are sung with an incredible amount of feeling; within the collective voice everyone knows their part, creating a whole that can be both painfully sad or joyous, but always powerful. I don’t know how to describe it except to say that I can only imagine how intimidating and powerful the freedom songs were during apartheid when a whole population sang out with one voice against injustice.

After the unveiling lunch was served and we sat in camping chairs in the dirt street tailgating while the tent was transformed into a wedding venue. All the time the BOOM BOOM BOOM of the DJ continued. When it was time, the older woman entered the house’s compound carrying brooms and mops for the bride; they went to the door of the house dancing and singing out in their language “Why are you inside when we are here outside?”, trying to get the bride to come out. They made me do the dance too and thought it was hilarious when I tried. Later, the bride, groom and wedding party danced out together in unison. Under the tent lots of things were said which I didn’t understand. During the ceremony the guests came and went as they pleased, ate from the buffet provided and drank the free beer that the family and neighbors made available. Brian was transformed into the events photographer, making use of our new camera, being pulled in all directions.

Throughout the whole day we were treated like celebrities. People would come up to us to shake our hands and try to get us to dance, the old woman especially. They thanked us for coming and told us how proud us being there made them. I am still confused about this special treatment, since we were the ones crashing their big day. We were put in the weddings program, one of us being asked to say a few words, but it was not until they called us up and Brian began to speak that I realized he was not just saying a few words, he was actually giving the wedding toast. Let me be clear, we didn’t even know the names of the bride and groom whose wedding we were crashing.

The rest of the day was full of amazing dancing, singing and drinking, and ended rather early and anticlimatically when the bride and groom left her family home to travel to her in-laws, thus symbolically switching her duty to her new family – from now on I am told when the couple comes home for holidays, etc. they will go to the husbands family. We left laden with gifts of beer and scones, hugs and smiles and words of thanks. An odd experience altogether but a good one. It was a privilege to catch a glimpse of both a traditional unveiling and wedding celebration but a little uncomfortable to be singled out and held up merely because we are either a) foreigners or b) white. I guess we’ll never know which one it is.

More on our new Child Aid project to follow.