As part of the project, I have to drive around the communities, attend meetings and befriend the community leaders. One of these, Baba Sisthole (say Stohle) has died suddenly last week while we were on the way to his meeting. To show the projects support for the community there was no question that I had to attend memorial and funeral.
The funeral will take place on Saturday at 6:30am (no sleeping-in in South Africa). The memorial took place yesterday. The family had set up a tent in the backyard of their house with plastic chairs and a table at the front at which all the representatives from the ANC and other organizations sat. Members of the community started flocking in, I being the only white person in the mass of people. The funeral director welcomed the attendants and the nun from the last community meeting attended kept breaking into song at random moments which led the whole congregation to get to their feet, to sing, dance and clap their hands. This happened repeatedly with myself being slightly stunned at the randomness of it all.
Every member at the front table held a little commemorative speech about Baba Sithole which was framed by more singing and dancing. I was then approached to also hold a speech in honour of this man, who seemed to have been a great community leader but was absolutely unknown to me. To show the project’s support, I agreed, got up, held a short but moving speech and then left with my consultant who looked at me approvingly and said: “You spoke well, like you actually knew him!”
Obivously no photos of the memorial as that would be disrespectful!
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