Funerals

The day after the death, Alma's sister-in-law arrived at the house with her family's donation to discover that no arrangements had been made about the body. So she talked to the local government official who in turn arranged with the funeral home to do a "subsidized" embalming. The funeral home then sent a vehicle over to get the body. Alma's mother and the sister-in-law accompanied the body and the mother signed the papers, and a down payment was made. They then went home and several hours later the body was returned to the house already embalmed.

The plan is to keep the body at the house for the next nine days while the expensive burial site is being readied (the cement has to dry.) A lot of people believe that the spirits of the dead can come back and make the living sick, so it would be foolhardy in the extreme to NOT fulfill the dying wish of a person, in this case, to be buried in the expensive cemetery. The in-laws understand this as well as anybody.

So what do you do with a body in the house for nine days? You set up tables so neighbors can come over and drink and gamble. The deal is that the winner is supposed to contribute a portion of his winnings to the family of the deceased. Meanwhile the family of the deceased has to feed the visitors. The idea is that eventually the income will exceed the outlay. Having a lot of people around also ensures that nobody has to be alone with the corpse.

Alma's mother has not been idle. In addition to continuing to pressure the in-laws to find more cash, she managed to talk a local politician into donating a sack of rice (elections are coming up next month) and his rival donated some food also. Alma's husband's boss also made a largish contribution, which to the husband's annoyance has been spent on juice for the visitors and flowers (a LOT of flowers) and a fancy tent insteed of going to pay the funeral home or the cemetery.

So maybe in the end Alma will get her wish after all.

I am off tomorrow to the second of my worlds and one of the things I will do there is attend a funeral.