Burial practices

In some parts of Africa you are not allowed to talk at all while in the cemetery, save your comments about the length of the speeches for later.

In old days the meat cooked at funerals was unseasoned the idea being – hey this isn’t a festive occasion. Nowadays hey that’s the whole reason why we go to funerals lots of fresh meat- have you ever tasted freshly slaughtered meat? I swear this stuff you get at the butcheries and supermarkets is a curse.

Whenever people know of a funeral they would send over some form of food material to the bereaved families – of course, money is the gift of choice today.

The thing about it is that, in my part of Africa whenever you hear about a funeral you are supposed to tell as many people as you know, who you think might not have heard. You see to not attend a funeral is a BIG DEAL- so you don’t want some of your relatives saying, you know that family they never told us about the bereavement they only went by themselves. This practice has led to many problems.

Ther reason being that everyone and I mean everyone must attend the funeral and usually you talk of a crowd of not less than 400 people at, most funerals. ( IMAGINE – YOUR RELATIVES, IN THE EXTENDED FAMILY, YOUR MANY IN LAWS, YOUR WORK MATES, YOUR CHURCH MATES, YOUR SCHOOL MATES, YOUR CHILDERENS WORKMATES, SCHOOL MATES, CHURCHMATES, YOUR AUNTS WORKMATES, SCHOOL MATES, CHURCH MATES ETC I THINK YOU GET THE PICTURE – ALL BECAUSE TO NOT ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF SOMEONE YOU KNOW, WHTEHER ITS THROUGH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMEONE IS CONSIDERED DISRESPECTFULL AND NOT SHOWING SUPPORT), The week before the funeral, daily evening prayers are held, sometimes in town if the person lived in town. This weeklong delay is apparently to allow all relatives from far and wide to attend the funeral – there we go again. And again for the same reasons most funerals are on weekends. I’m told that members of the IPCC (Intercostals apostolic church I think) only bury their members during the week – BIG UP TO THEM –

Everyone is complaining about the ridiculous costs of burying in Africa I mean, the costs of catering to 400 people is no joke. Not to mention the impact on productivity. In say a big company, how many funerals would you have to attend on any one weekend, what about in a big church, or a big family?

The night before an all night wake with singing – mainly Christian hymns - is held. Nowadays, people knock of at 12. I mean really here you’ve traveled 500kms into the bush to attend a funeral, you’re supposed to get back tomorrow in time for work and you’re expected to stay up all night too, com on.

I remember my grandfathers funeral I was dead tired did I mention that we don’t usually if ever hire catering companies – so me and my sisters were on our feet forever serving people, taking part in the cooking etc gosh its like you’re some kind of slave – you get comments like”is there any goat meat because I don’t it beef” ha ha ha , yep umm “I will only take samp, or pap or mabele”. Really, “can I have another glass of water “– puleez people.

The grave is dug by the men of the house – the coffin is placed in one of the huts and usually the wife an old lady will be there or the spouse or mother – funny I’ve never actually attended a funeral were the surviving member was male I just realized that – n-way they will usually be in that hut with a bunch of other old ladies covered in blankets. Everyone sits and sings outside the hut.

When you arrive you are supposed to greet everyone, its always confusing to me whether I’m supposed to kneel or a mere bob will suffice generally I prefer none of the above. After which the men have their domain in Botswana they are in charge of the meat from the slaughtering to the cooking – yeh they like that don’t they.

The women have their domain and they cook everything else – bread, fat cakes, tea, samp, palish, bogobe, cabbage etc

Have you ever tried cooking pap on a size 16 pot? You don’t want to know. Generally this is always a bad experience for me- I never really know how to make myself useful. I don’t know how to make the bread and generally cooking over a fire for 400 people just isn’t one of my specialties.

So what else? oh in the past men always had to be wearing jackets, but I guess how many people own those so that’s kind of archaic

Women however must still be covered on the head at all times, dukes are archaic for these purposes nowadays everyone has at least one designer hat or funky hat they use for funerals – of course if you are female trousers are a no no no no no – I cannot stress that enough, its out of the question.

This obsession about people attending funerals - I hear stories like. There was some guy in some village who every time there was a funeral he would drive his cars to the home to offer them for whatever. So the day he had a funeral at his home everyone drove their cars over and parked them and left.

Apparently some women who never used to eat whenever she attended funerals when it was her turn nobody ate the food at her funeral.

So apparently people do such things, there is some kind of blackmail in it if you don’t participate in other people’s funerals they won’t participate in yours. So you don’t really have a choice.

I have only one question would it be so bad if only 10 people attended a funeral and you didn’t have to cook for the whole world and all you did was to concentrate on mourning your dearly departed-I wonder.

Wolf Killer

I chose this title because I always liked that name for Lestat, Magnus calls him “brave strong little wolf killer”,

“Lelio the Wolf killer…Sunlight in the hair, he whispered and the blue sky forever
fixed in your eyes…You’re perfect my Lelio wolf killer”.

and because the scene where he kills the wolves in the snow has always been one my most memorable in the Vampire chronicles.

“ Right now I’m thinking about the snow all over these mountains and the wolves that were
Frightening the villagers and stealing my sheep…since I was the only lord who could sit on a
horse and fire a gun, it was natural that the villagers should come to me, complaining about
the wolves and expecting me to hunt them. It was my duty...”

“That was my life and it might as well have been lived in the middle ages. I was unhappy and
ferocious as I rode up the mountain. I wanted a good battle with the wolves...”

“It was an ambush and I could never make the forest in time. And the pack was eight wolves,
Not five as the villagers had told me…”

“I think as I scramble to my feet, I knew I was going to die.
But it never occurred to me to give up. I was maddened, wild. Almost snarling, I faced the
Animals and looked the closest of the two wolves straight in the eye...”

“That was the end of it, the pack was dead. I was alive. And the only sound in the empty snow-
Covered valley was my own breathing and the rattling shriek of my dying mare…”

“By the time I reached the castle gates, I think I was not Lestat. I was someone else
altogether, staggering into the great hall, with that wolf over my shoulders, the heat of
the carcass very much diminished now and the sudden blaze of the fire an irritant in my eyes”

I recommend you read the whole scene someday. So primitive and it makes me think of how each one of us has this life defining moment maybe not as dramatic. However it is something that changes us irrevocably, it may not necessarily have a direct effect on future events but it plays a big role somehow. An event never forgotten.

Where would some of us be without Ann Rice, ever wondered? I have always loved historical novels, the Victorian mills & boons were my favorite. Ann Rice is always so accurate and she really brings her characters and the period to life in an astounding way. They become real people, real and unforgettable. I recently read a book of hers Christ the Lord, I did not know that she used to actually be atheist – it never really occurred to me. I quote in her epilogue / Bibliography where she says

“every one of my novels since 1974 involved historical research…without ever planning it, I’ve
moved slowly backwards in history, from the nineteenth century, were I felt at home in my
first two novels to the first century were I sought answers to enormous questions that became
an obsession with me that simply could not be ignored,..

Ultimately the figure of Jesus Christ was at the heart of this obsession. More generally, it
was the birth of Christianity and the fall of the ancient world. I wanted to know desperately
what happened in the first century; and why people in general never talked about it…after
that I wrote many novels without being aware that they reflected my quest for meaning in
a world without God…

I left the church at the age of eighteen…no personal event precipitated this loss of faith…

I stumbled upon a mystery without a solution, a mystery so immense that I gave up trying to
find an explanation because the whole mystery defied belief. The mystery was the survival of
the Jews…I couldn’t understand how these people had endured as the great people they were…

it was this mystery that drew me back to God. It set into motion the idea that there may in
fact be a God…many of these scholars…disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him, and some
felt an outright contempt…I’d never come across this kind of emotion in any other field of
research.”


I think it is so admirable that she can say that. For any individual to be able to grow and change their point of view like that to me is admirable. Often people make a decision, they become stuck in it unwilling to explore new things. In my view that can hinder your growth as a person.
Great Doubt, Great Awakening
Little Doubt, Little Awakening
No Doubt, No Awakening.
(from the Zen tradition)
I loved the book, the only complaint I had is that it ended too quickly. I would have liked to see him right up to the time he became, ok right up to when he turned 30.

She brought out some interesting aspects, i.e. that carpenters were in fact highly respected and sought after as a profession. As the builders of the temple, the synagogues etc I suppose their skill was highly regarded so that makes sense.

There is a belief that Jesus stayed that long before he started his ministry because he was looking after the business when Joseph died. But that doesn’t make sense to me - he had brother.

The book challenged me in a way I had never realized before – I have never really doubted the existence of God, but the existence of Jesus is till a problem for me, the virgin birth, the miracles, and especially the resurrection are hard for me to grasp. To be confronted with a flesh and live Jesus in the book was amazing. Especially a younger version.

In David Walsh’s conversations with God. God says that he has sent many messengers, or appeared himself to different people in different forms and appearances, and yet all that has done is create confusion because others say, no that could not have been God, because when he appeared to me he looked like this and not the way you say he looked when he appeared to you.

The rich man and Lazarus parable – Moses says to Lazarus, I can not send Lazarus to warn your brothers- there have been prophets sent before, Moses has been sent, so has Elijah, So has Noah – if they can not listen to the prophets, they will not listen even if I sent a man from the dead to talk to them.

Personally I don’t know about that, I’m like “{I’ll listen Moses, I will just send me a dead someone I’m sure I’ll listen” wouldn’t it be so much simpler – I mean the fact that no one has ever really come back may actually mean it isn’t possible to, because there is nothing, have you ever thought of it that way. But again there is the reincarnation thing so who knows.

Wolf Killer - a ligkaribe poem

“A voice said wolf killer’ long & low a whisper that was like a summons and a tribute at the same time”

Wolf Killer
Immortal embrace

Sitting alone in darkness, drinking up the shadows
Embrace of loving arms, warmth on my back...
A whisper of love?
Voices in my head?

Staggering alone in twilight, listening to the silence
Arms waiting for me, moistness on my cheek...
A kiss of love?
Voices in my head?

Lying alone in gloom, drowning in the scent of dusk
soft brush of tender fingers, warm impression upon my body...
Lovers weight?
Voices in my head?

Lunacy?
The shadows whisper to me?
Incoherency is my bedfellow
Lucidity a mist before my eyes

Invisible arms and soundless kisses
Devour my faltering willpower
Alluring temptations and subtle seductions,
overwhelming my senses

Warm, chasing away the coldness,
melting my being
An invitation,
to lose myself in the arms of - who?

In that moment I am wanted,
enveloped in passion,
sinking into the sensation of predilection

Sense of you,
your presence sets my heart racing,
sinister, looming figure of darkness
Menacing, omnousity,
my mind dancing in the halls of obscurity
alive no more, walking in the twilight of life,
a moment away from your arms,
a moment away from death
Drowning in your black aura,
inundated by its intensity
Your enormous mass,
permeating itself into my pores

Scent of impermanence,
struggle for survival
All I hear now is the voices in my head
laughing and raucous,
Deafening sound of life ebbing away,
Vociferous, riotous the tang of austerity
“But this is what you sought after, my love.
Calling to me with your very essence.”

Inside me, motionless,
mind in turmoil,
Fear like I have never experienced,
Repeated plunges into my being,
into my essence

Violent and fast, fast and furious,
the taking
Fast needy breath against my ear,
Passionate, fervent embrace of death,

To be needed to be desired so much,
Sinking into forbidden ecstasy
Fulfillment of hidden desires
Now truly unveiled
You knew all along what I wanted

The taste of doom,
sweet luscious smell of death,
No longer voices in my head
but voices of my intimate,
tranquility mine to grasp

In this moment of death, never more alive, alive for eternity – immortal, by you my Wolf Killer.