msiba

My neighbor Raymond's sister passed away mid-December. Her name was Sara. She was in her mid-thirties and was a single mom. Normally I would never take pictures at a funeral but Raymond asked that I bring my camera to the service. Josh and Sue gave me a ride to his home village about an hour and half from town. Thankfully another friend, Paulo, went with us. He used my camera to take pictures and took far more than I would have been comfortable taking of the family and the service. Since he's Tanzanian he was also able to move around and blend in. He'd been a pastor out at Sara's village church a few years previously and had a relationship with the family. I was grateful since I really only knew Raymond and his wife Flora. This allowed Sue, Josh and I to remain outside during the very crowded service so that people who knew Sara could be inside the church. It looked like about 300 people were there.
Funerals are very different in Tanzania. There is a morgue here but no funeral home to take care of all of the details for grieving families. It was up to Raymond and his family to transport the coffin from the hospital morgue out to the village. The coffin stayed in the house overnight. Then the next day it needed to be carried from the house to the church for the service. The walk from the house to the church was long. All of the men formed 2 lines and the coffin was passed down the row all of the way to the church. The women went ahead and stood in the shade waiting. It was a moving sight and showed how important community is here. I didn't post many pictures but I wanted people to get an idea of what a Tanzanian Christian funeral is like.