African Funerals.....The Economics of Dying in Africa

It have seen and experienced this same dilemma for many African years personally.

A sick family member, limited or nonexistent money, and a family meeting to discuss if we should use what little money we have left ( more often the question is should we borrow it from another at the high bush interest rate of 100% interest) for expensive transportation to get to some expensive kind of clinic or hospital care, and put the whole family at risk of starving or greater debt. Or, wait longer and hope that the sick family member, somehow, gets better on their own. It's not unheard of you know. Sometimes it works in your favor. But the majority of times not. When you are that sick, so sick as to provoke a family meeting over it, there are already great odds stacked up against you, it's obvious to everyone in the family by now. Time, nor bush economics of the poor, are not on your side.

When the death comes, an elaborate long funeral is hosted where all the guests, from miles around, must be fed and lodged for days of mourning. Goats or chickens are all killed to feed the mob that arrives, and after several days of funeral affairs, the family is left without their loved one, and now, added to it, their cash and food resources all cashed in with little or nothing left for the poor family, and often new debt too.

Makes me wonder why more effort to keep a person alive, in the long run, is not seen as the better economical choice in the end, if economics were all there was to it. I too never understood this "Funeral Thing" nor the thought processes or customs surrounding it in much of Africa. It's their culture, their tradition... I get that folks, but it is one thing about their culture and tradition I have never understood to this day. What is certain, is that what began as a family affair became a community one too.

"I really was almost too much to bear. I had great respect for the Kalambayan people and most of their traditional ways. But this custom of extravagant funerals was something I never quite learned to accept. It was one of those things here I eventually stopped trying to figure out for fear of losing my mind....The funeral for Kanyenda's brother dragged on for two more weeks, even after there was little left to consume." (Mike Tidwell. The Ponds Of Kalambayi. Pig 132)