Girl code: The annoying part of African funerals

Attending burials in an African setting has shown me how far pretence can stretch. You think you have seen it all until you find a crowd of mourners tucked somewhere under an isolated guava tree next to a pit latrine scrutinising the deceased’s casket and counting the number of minutes people spent in washrooms. Some of these people travel from far only to come and lose their focus next to the grave. You wonder if that’s the kind of ‘last respect’ they came all the way to give.