How city dwellers steal the show during village funerals

By Silas Nyanchwani

Funerals have become everything but a place to mourn and give loved ones a well-deserved send off. To a politician, that is crowd and a golden opportunity to campaign. For a preacher or a priest, it is another chance to solicit offering from the congregation.

The amount of posturing, chest-thumping and ‘swagger’ displayed by city dwellers during funerals annoys the rural folk more than it amuses them. It is normally a rude interruption to the quiet, mundane and even idyllic setting as soon as the long hearse pulls over and the English or Swahili-speaking guests alight from the entourage.

Although they grew up in the village, the weather is always punitively hot or unseasonably cold. Wearing black during a funeral is an acceptable borrowed tradition that helps distinguish the bereaved, lest you make an inappropriate comment about the dead, in the presence of their beloved ones.