Muerte

The people here have a very different way of dealing with death than what I am used to. Rather than fearing and avoiding the passing on of a person, the community embraces it entirely. The other night the other volunteers and I had a meeting scheduled with several prominent community leaders. We arrived to the meeting only to discover that it had been canceled due to a severe illness in one of the elder men of the community. The house was nearby, and we were invited to accompany the locals on what turned out to be their last goodbye to this man. Maybe it’s the nature of living in a small town, maybe it was testament to the strength of the Church here, but for whatever reason, we arrived at the house to find it overflowing with people. It was so full inside that people were standing or sitting wherever there was room in the street, filling up the block in either direction. Both the young and old turned out in equal measure, and each group was equally filled with tears and grief. Each person was given their turn to sit bedside and say goodbye. The next day, we heard that he passed away peacefully. Passing by the house later that day, I was surprised to find that the crowd of people had not yet dissipated. If anything, it had grown. Once night came, a fire was lit in the middle of the street to serve as a beacon to those passing that a death had occurred, and the crowd grew yet larger with those who had to pay their respects. In Talanga, the people practice very unique ritual following a death. The family of the deceased builds an altar and hold a 9-day service, providing food and drink to any person who enters. The amount of people present slowly dwindles, but during this time the body is presented and buried, and for several days after the burial the pray and celebration continues. I had the opportunity to experience the final day of this service in another household, and what I observed was that not a single person there seemed sad. I knew from seeing the beginning stages of this process that there had most definitely been tears earlier, but it amazed me how much they had healed from what happened. By addressing death directly, by facing it and embracing what it means, and by getting such amazing support from the community, the people here are almost comfortable with it. They celebrate a life for what it should be.