Hope

Motionless, I stayed overwhelmed, wearing his face on my t-shirt, I was now looking at him in the coffin. A white coffin, with white inner lining and ruffles. Him, wearing his black Sunday suit, a different colour, bloodless, eyes closed, lips sealed. His bright look a memory, his honest and warm smile haunting me.

On the right hand side of the room, women in white, on the left hand side of the room, women in black. All around, family and friends, male and female, mourning. Some standing close to him, some sitting in silence, some crying. I step in the room next to the makeshift church. The crying, the weeping, the screaming, the yelling, the imploring all sound too violent and make me  take a step out. I walk a few meters and back up the stairs, shake hands with women too weak to lift their arms, too chagrined to sustain my sympathetic look.

I am the only white woman. I sit down and start feeling dizzy, dizzy from the putrid and sour smell, distressed by the pain expressed in this small room, the rage, the praying and the begging. From awful moments of silence where one can guess tears being shed to overwhelming screams of panick, I’m losing strength. After 20 minutes, the funeral hasn’t yet started, a band starts playing, two, four, six notes and the cries intensify, women start convulsing, women fall on the floor, lingering screams take over…I am shattered, I am crying. I’m told I can go out. I’m outside, motionless again. Prostrate, staring at the scene, not understanding the protocol. Staring at people taking pictures and filming the wake. Staring at my colleagues, all wearing the same t-shirt with his portrait on, their moves giving his face  expressions never to be seen again.

The coffin is taken to the makeshift church alongside another coffin and the mass starts amongst the noise, the tears and in front of sleeping homeless people whose shelter is the church. After the chaos of the ceremony, we follow the coffin down to a beautiful strong tree and we leave for the family house, a set of small USAID shelters. In the center of the courtyard, a metallic bowl with leaves, water and soap, where people inorderly queue up to dip their hands in. Several family members are scattered around the courtyard, sitting on chairs. We go around to give them a kind word and present condoleances. More young women fall and roll in the dust, men try to hold and restrain their stiff seizing bodies, powerless against their pain.

I meet his wife. The lady who 18 days ago stood outside our gate crying, impotent facing the news. His daughter is sat on her lap, I shake their hands and the little girl caresses my left cheek and says “tu es belle”, I feel a lump in my throat, I feel my heart beat faster, I feel the ground slipping under my feet and I feel hope. Here to consolate her, she consolates me with her smile, I feel hope in her beautiful bright eyes, in her honest and warm smile.

Hope and love to you all.