A Ghanaian Funeral

Earlier this week, Stephen asked us interns to sing at the funeral of a 20-year-old girl that had died. We unlikely bunch of interns all happen to be musically inclined, and when Stephen found out, he put us to the test. We sang in church the first Sunday, and he loved it so much that he sang the same song we sang for the past two meetings we have attended. We picked the hymn Each Life That Touches Ours For Good, a beautiful hymn, and I have to admit, it sounded really good the way we prepared it. Her father teaches Sunday school, so he is a big part of the branch here. The girl had been living in Ghana with her boyfriend when she suddenly died, and nobody is quite able to explain how she died.

Friday morning, we arose early to practice and get to the chapel on time. Margaret, Stephen’s wife, who has been helping her daughter with her baby, came up from Accra to attend the funeral. She cooked us a large, delicious breakfast of eggs, cream of wheat, and Milo. As we munched on our breakfast, there was a dull thud of loud music down the road. It had been ringing the night before as well, and Beverly reported that it was some kind of party. We guessed it was some house that we pass on the way to the church, so we were curious to see what the deal was.

As we walked by, we saw copious amounts of chairs set up all over the yard. They were mostly situated under simple canopies, and there was a funny canopy with a green background. We passed all of these on the trail, when Master Fufu, the man who took us all over in Accra who had also come up for the funeral, told us that he would be driving and could take us. The church is a 20-minute walk away, so we gratefully accepted his offer. We were then on the outskirts of the party, watching with curiosity.

Master Fufu explained to us what it was. It was the funeral. Everybody was dressed in black or red, their mourning colors. Hoards of people were in attendance, supporting the family. The six-foot tall stack of speakers and sub woofers pounded the African music that has no complexity.Though the music was simple, it seemed upbeat and happy, and many of the patrons of the funeral were dancing around the casket. We though, “How nice! They have a big celebration for their funerals.” Margaret, who would also be joining us in the car ride to the church, told us that they were sad and crying and drunk. The conflict of loud party music and dancing with morning and grieving was hard to notice until this one lady broke from the crowd and walked near us. She was wailing and crying, but still dancing to the music! It was so weird to watch her bawl and cry out to whomever she was yelling, but still walk around swinging her hips!  I decided that they physically mourn. The way we mourn is very emotional and spiritual, which affects our body, but they just let it all out in every way possible.

While they were dancing around and making strange motions at the casket, Margaret pointed out the most disturbing part of the funeral. We looked underneath the funny canopy with the green background and saw the dead girl dressed in white sitting in a chair! I guess she was just taking it all in….. She was dressed in white, her head cocked lifelessly to the side. We gave each other looks of horror as we realized how strange the party we were attending suddenly seemed.

Margaret said she wanted to stay a little bit longer, so we obrunis waited awkwardly at the weird viewing. We thought we would only stay for a few more minutes, but we ended up staying for an hour, eyeing the veiled girl “watching” her own party.

The upbeat sounding music thudded through the air, making it hard to think sometimes. Many people came around to shake our hands, which was a welcoming gesture. I did not want to get much farther into the festivities, but Garrett and Zandra walked in to get a closer look at the body. They said she definitely looked dead, her lively color gone and replaced with a ghastly gray. It probably was a good gesture on their part, but I didn’t want to look like the weirdo obruni (it happens anyway; I’m an obruni, and we are all weird to them).

The party was ending (it was past time for the funeral), and so we loaded the car and drove to the chapel. The body was hauled there by an ambulance, followed by a mass of mourning, drunk, wailing, dancing people. The funeral at the church was significantly subdued, all though the people outside of the chapel still wailed and made Elder Dalton’s talk hard to listen too (he is a couple missionary and is in the district presidency; they live just down the street from the Abu’s). Our song went very well, and the people really appreciate our simple talent.

We did not walk to the cemetery; it was very far, and we had a class to go to.  Our class went alright, even though we were slightly late and didn’t have a translator until 40-minutes past the time we were supposed to start. Our class size dropped from 73 to about 25, which is good we do not have to sift through so many people. During our walk back to the house, it started to rain, which felt very nice compared to the sweaty walk to Amonom (we ditched the taxi because he was charging too much for the ride).

We passed the missionaries after the funeral, and they asked how the funeral went. They were as appalled and interested as we were, but the Elder from Nigeria said that even they don’t do that in his country, and that we will have bad dreams tonight. Although the experience was strange, the custom for death is interesting, and seeing the body was not traumatizing (just weird). I never thought I would participate in a funeral in Ghana, but when in Rome……