A Malawian Funeral

If you have been following, the May 3rd post about our visit to Bondo village involves this family. At the time of this picture, Bro. Mitambo's father was not well. He was actually scheduled for some surgery but passed away not long after this day.
We agreed to take some of the branch leadership out to the funeral. The Mitambo's, of course, were already out at the village helping with the preparations so we were on our own to find the place again. We got directions as best we could and set off with the branch president, the Relief society president, the Mitambo kids and four or five other teenage relatives. One girl thought she could help us find the way so she rode in the cab with us and the other adults. We did pretty well for most of the way. Elder Prete has an amazing sense of direction and until our little guide tried to point the way, we were on the right track. Of course, by that time there were network issues and we weren't able to call for a while. Needless to say, we saw about a half hour's worth of new road. We started just stopping at every fork and asking directions. Someone would point up the road and away we went again. Finally we got there. Things were well underway... but it certainly wasn't anything like funerals we've ever been to.

L-R Bro Mitambo, his uncle, his father - chief Bondo, his mother-in-law, Sister Mitambo and their new baby (born just two weeks after they got back from the temple in Johannesburg). I front are their two sons, Clement and Godknows. Their daughter Fortunate was out with friends.

The next clip is as the dignitaries are entering. This part of the event took place at exactly the same spot as the ceremony back in May. At this point things alternated between political type speeches from different points in the crowd (and I mean crowd) and performances by the guli wa mkuru characters. Brother Mitambo's father had actually asked for a Christian funeral but the neighbors and tribal leaders decided he should have a traditional type funeral. It was amazing actually. There had to have easily been close to 5000 people there. Very little was said about the deceased except there seemed to be quite a bit of posturing for those wanting the positions and responsibilities he had had. Little attention seemed to be paid to the immediate family. It was very interesting to say the least.

 

The guy below is one of the guli wa mkulu characters. They perform to impress the crowd so the onlookers will pay them money. Everyone seemed to especially like this one. Some things were almost carnival like to one like me who knows nothing about what is going on.

Another performer dressed like an ostrich-like creature.

By the time we got everyone delivered and got home it was a long day. It would have been interesting to feel like we could take pictures freely but it felt awkward so Elder Prete just kind of held his ipad against his chest sometimes and tried to be inconspicuous. We were the only azungu (white people) for miles around and we arrived in one of five vehicles that were there including the truck that carried the coffin. The Mitambos took great care of us and everyone treated us cordially. We got stared at a lot because they don't get very many white folk that far out in the country. Another one for the blog!