Sobering

My car joins the string of mourners who follow the coffin to Kitambo cemetery. Minivans packed to the brim with friends and relatives of the deceased sway on the road ahead, street children hanging from the roof and balancing on the bumpers, singing and waving and generally making a lot of cheerful noise. I had heard that funerals in Africa used rituals of joy to celebrate the life of the deceased, but against the distraught faces of the pained relatives, the street kids’ euphoria seems out of place nonetheless.

The burial ceremony itself lasts only a few minutes, but its brevity is overshadowed by the intensity of the grief expressed so outwardly – women howling, men beating their chests. No rituals of joy here, but some drumming and singing amidst the cries of despair. An elderly woman faints noisily and is dragged away by a wailing teenager. The driver asks me about funerals in Europe and is perplexed when I tell him of the subdued ceremony, the silent tears and muffled sobs, of mourners dressed in black commenting in hushed tones on the life and death of the deceased.

The large procession leaves, trampling carelessly over fresh graves squeezed haphazardly alongside older, fading ones discernible only by the white, dilapidated, wooden cross at their head. There is no room for a path. Officially, the cemetery of Kitambo, one of the largest in Kinshasa, is closed for lack of space. Cemeteries all over the country are full; Parents’ Day here is not about sending greeting cards to your parents, it is the equivalent of All Souls’ Day at home, with people cramming into the cemeteries to visit and tidy the graves of their loved ones.

As we head back towards the road, we stop to let a small, desolate procession pass us. Two pallbearers carry a small, makeshift coffin – a child. According to a recent survey, the mortality rate in DRC is 40 percent higher than that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with more than 1,200 people dying every day. (More on Reuteurs)