My First Traditional Kenyan Funeral

As most of you know, last Tuesday, one of our players at Petra Boys Academy (our senior team) past away quite unexpectedly as he incurred a brain aneurysm. Gimo or Gaga as he was known in the community, just turned twenty-four this month and was the first born in his family. Yesterday I had the privilege to attend his funeral ceremony and in trying to sum up what happened there are three phrases that come to mind: 1. "Aslan is on the move," 2. I'm still in Kenya, and 3. I don't know that one is supposed to have fun at a funeral but I definitely had a blast!

The events happened chronologically but before I go into detail, I have to start from the beginning. We were supposed to arrive at the funeral home at 8:00am, but let's get one thing straight, this is Kenya or TIA. That means in reality that people were still arriving after 9am. Once we were satisfied with the people around, they brought out the casket and allowed us to see Gimo one last time. After that we loaded up into 4 buses and one matatu. I was one of the lucky and not so lucky ones to be in the church bus. Unlucky in the fact that our bus driver went missing for an hour and a half! Seriously, he just upped and decided that he wasn't going to drive us. So once we figured that out and got the church to send another driver who had to get a taxi and then come through the traffic jams, we were finally off an hour and a half behind the leaders. I was lucky in the fact that my bus wasn't one of the ones that ended up having the youth boys smoking pot. One of the girls from ICC ended up having to leave that bus because it was so strong, even the driver thought there was a fire in his car.

Once we got to our destination, the first thing that took place was a photo shoot of all the families, organizations, and football teams that Gimo was a part of and were represented that day. After that there were representatives who spoke about Gimo including one of our coaches, Nicholas Masharia. Here's when I get to point number 1. After the representatives spoke, the pastor gave a speech and during this speech 14 youths came to accept Christ as their Savior! It was awesome to see how something that seemed so life taking to many ended up becoming life giving for 14 individuals. During their prayer I was just reminded that even though it's hard to sometimes see God or know why He does the things that He does, He is still at work and knows whats best.

Ok Number 2. So after the alter call and speeches, Petra Boys was then asked to carry the casket from the ceremony to the burial. It was only about 100 meters distance, but the trail wasn't well marked and it was in the middle of a tea field. So as I'm helping to carry the casket and keep my footing, I feel these little fingers going down into my pockets. Thankfully they didn't have enough time to grab anything and I was able to smack their hands away, but I was reminded yet again of my skin color. I was the only mazungu (whiter person) in attendance and I had never felt like I was being so judged in all my entire life. It was similar to the time that I went to Highland Park's mall and saw people judging me for wearing soccer shirts and a white t-shirt, but this was on a much larger scale. Like the dad rarely took his eyes off me and any time I looked away, there was another male staring at me. I'm so thankful that I had Kenyan friends who were there with me, sat with me, could translate a little bit for me what was happening, but I felt honored to be at this ceremony.

After we put the casket on top of the grave, the tradition is that everyone plays a role in the actual burial process. So we were letting the casket down when after 6 inches, realized that the grave wasn't long enough. So we pulled the casket back out and two guys jumped into the 7 foot grave and started frantically digging to make it fit. Once that was done then we let the casket down and the parents threw the first soil ontop and then the rest of the crowd followed until it was finished.

Then the family gave us dinner, which by this time it was 5pm and we were supposed to have left by 230pm. We were served huge servings of rice, githeri, and tea. I knew that I needed to be careful because when there's a big function like this, food usually doesn't get prepared like it should, so I took the risk and had my dinner. It was quite good, but I woke up the next morning with my stomach doing flips.

Number 3. So on the way to the ceremony, not too many people talked. There was a time for about twenty minutes when they broke into Swahili worship, and that truly was one of the greatest experiences I've had here as we were driving through the country side. It definitely made the three hour trek much easier. But back to on the way home, I began talking with this guy named Masaba, who I continually called Mufasa. We were talking and then Gaga urged me to sing Masaba  a swahili song. The next thing I know Masaba got the whole bus to be quite and listen to the mazungu sing. I completely butchered the song, but I will never forget how that whole bus erupted with laughter once I started singing. It was awesome. Once they were able to control themselves, they then taught me the song and then the whole bus sang it by my lead. From that point on, everyone was either singing, telling me jokes, dancing, or laughing. It felt like I was coming home from summer camp and was singing all the new fun songs that I had learned. The other thing that I will never forget is how much they laughed when I was dancing in the middle of the aisle when we hit this hug bump and I hit my head on the top of the bus and almost face planted on the floor. Oh and I can't forget also when the bus pulled on the side of the road and all these ladies jumped off and next thing I know, there's 8 little humps just sitting outside in the field doing there business. So funny.

So hows that for a Kenyan Adventure. My first real traditional funeral ceremony and it is one that I won't easily forget. Well I hope you enjoyed my stories and experiences. I hope you have a great night and I'll be sure to let you know when my next adventure is. Cheers.