The Sunday Mail
ALL appeared well on both ends of the telephone until the person on the other side broke the news to Admire of his half-sister’s death.
“Hello, hello, mati kudii? Handisikunzwa — hello, hello,” he could be heard saying, while feigning a poor network connection before switching off the phone, never to switch it on again until he was confident the funeral was done and dusted.
If cellphones could speak, one day they would remonstrate against their owners not to lie that they were in poor working order whenever it suited them.
Though queer, such is the conduct of most people to wriggle out of situations that have the potential to pull them back financially.
Others will tell the informer straight in the eye: “Did she have a policy? For all the years she was in Harare do you mean to say such an educated person had no funeral policy?”
A funeral, by its nature, is not a pleasant occasion.
It is a sombre gathering where friends and relatives of a deceased person gather to either bury or cremate the body.
Some people have so many relatives and friends that their funerals are usually oversubscribed, while others have few relatives who turn up to give them a send-off.
However, it is not the number of people present that makes things happen.
It is never the amount of tears shed for if it were so, some departed souls would literally swim into their graves in the tears of their loved ones.
Funerals require money.
You need to have money to make things happen.
Money is required to buy the coffin, prepare the deceased for burial, meet transport costs, buy food for mourners and little everything else.
It is the availability of money or absence thereof which usually determines the duration of a funeral.
Funerals for the well-heeled usually take very little time and if there are delays in burial, these are usually occasioned by corresponding delays in repatriating the body from abroad for burial.
In some instances, they will be waiting for a close relative to arrive from overseas.
During this waiting period, mourners will be treated to princely meals that come with sweets and desserts in remembrance of the elegant lifestyle of the dearly departed.
Live musical gigs are sometimes staged at these ostentatious funerals.
“Tangoti mukuvarangarira tidaidze muimbi wavaifarira zvikuru,” you hear the announcers saying while resplendent in apparel that makes you feel your wardrobe needs a complete overhaul.
Security will be tight at such funerals, where those of the mean sort are sometimes asked to disappear since their presence will not be welcome.
Funerals of the well-heeled are full of fun as they sometimes hire mourners to cry on their behalf while the poor usually make themselves available to feed on crumbs that fall off the master’s table or just to witness the drama that comes with such gatherings.
“Handei tinoona zviriko. Idenga pasi pano,” you hear people saying before rushing to be part and parcel of rich people’s funerals.
But wait until a funeral occurs on the western side of Julius Nyerere Way, where the poor and their hospitals are located, and you start to see the underbelly of ghetto life.
A funeral in the ghetto is something else.
Food is usually scare, hence endless fights, while close relatives and friends usually spend time calming people who will be at each other’s throats.
Stories of muti and witchcraft usually gain currency at ghetto funerals, where it is not unusual to see siblings trading blows.
Some young widows are given marching orders before the burial of their husbands on accusations of prostitution, witchcraft and laziness.
It is at ghetto funerals where you find some youths hired to denigrate certain characters, singing out loud and dancing wildly for their next pint of beer without caring to assess the damage they will be causing to the deceased’s children and family.
Ghetto funerals are also usually very long as people will be finding it hard to put together funds to buy a coffin and also because of unnecessary disagreements.
But not all ghetto funerals are dreary.
Some of them are so intriguing that each time you get an opportunity you will always want to attend one.
Some ghetto funerals are like huge parties where people go down memory lane reminiscing on the life and times of the deceased.
At such funerals, people will be literally swimming in beer.
A ghetto funeral can be a mammoth party, a once in a lifetime experience.
There is everything for everyone there.
However, having a funeral policy is no bad choice.
Inotambika mughetto.
