Our little family of three spent our Thanksgiving break in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, West Africa, where we buried my wife’s mother and our daughter’s grandmother, TsoTso Mensah.
The funeral services were based physically around the home of my wife’s elder sister, Mary Magdalene (M.M.) Mensah. M.M. lives in a small walled compound in a prosperous gated community in Lashibi, a suburb of the capital city.
The funeral began on Friday – “Black Friday” here at home – with a marathon wake. Our nieces put chairs and couches out on M.M.’s front lawn, and the family hired a DJ to play pop gospel music in local languages. The body of the deceased lay in state in M.M.’s living room, which had been transformed into a viewing parlor.
In Ghana, families agree on a particular print of fabric and have tailored new shirts and dresses for funerals. This establishes a striking visual impression of unity, as nearly everyone from the extended family shows up for funeral services wearing in essence the same clothes.
All night into the morning, family and friends gathered to pay respects, sitting and chatting quietly in small groups and paying visits to the body. There was no alcohol, as there is at the sort of “wake” that I know. It was a long, sober, quiet time to reflect on the person we had lost and comfort those who had survived her.
With whatever small glimpse of sleep, everyone was up early for the funeral Mass on Saturday. We celebrated her final services at new church, only seven years old, just around the corner in Lashibi. The facility is only partly constructed, so warm winds whipped through the empty concrete frame and out the open windows we could see banana plants, palm trees and other lush foliage. We confronted death surrounded by life.
We put her body to rest in the city center of Accra. Osu Cemetery has become so overbuilt that mourners had no choice but to stand on other graves and monuments to participate in the ceremony, which I found disturbing. Even more disturbing is a modern custom that has emerged to discourage grave robbers. Before closing the grave, one of the grave diggers took a pick axe to the top of the casket and damaged it. Now it was not worth stealing.
Following in the internment, M.M. hired a highlife band, the Buoyant Band, and a traditional drum circle, Agbe Music & Dance of Africa, to perform at the common grounds inside her gated community. Catered lunch was served with drinks, including beer. Guests responded more to the Agbe drummers, who drove out from Nima, one of Accra’s shantytowns, with their large drums piled on top of a bus.
After a long day of mourning and dancing, we were up even earlier the next day for another Mass. It so happened the church was saying farewell to their pastor of five years, so our funeral became tied into their very emotional – and very lengthy – farewell to their faith leader. Father Francis goes in for holy water in a big way, flinging it into the congregation with a large sponge. I was at one point soaked in holy water.
Before I married into an African family, I had the impression that African families venerate elders. I have now come to see this as a fact, especially at funerals. Funerals of elders are advertised everywhere in Ghana; certainly, you see more posters of departed elders on the streets of Ghana than you do of actors or pop stars.
Also, the departed are remembered with trinkets, as things like key chains, bottle openers or (the choice for TsoTso) drink mugs are mass-produced for the funeral with an image of the deceased on them. It was a pleasure, this morning, to prepare hot chocolate for my daughter and to serve it to her in a mug that bears the smiling face of her grandmother, the late TsoTso Mensah, whom we dearly miss.
