Death in the Compound
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I suppose I should have been expecting Binta’s death. I met her for the first time yesterday, we shook hands, her touch was light, nonexistent, her skin ashy. She is Papa Susso’s third daughter with his first wife, it was hepatitis. Her brother Hassan, who I helped get to the US with visa and plane fare, had found a hospital and doctor in Poughkeepsie who would treat her without a fee. Hassan’s employer had lent him enough cash to qualify him as sponsor, but the visa people said No good, we need bank statements going back months that show you have the money. So, this was a few weeks ago in New York, I accepted being her sponsor, faxed in bank statements, letter of responsibility. She was to return to the Consulate on Monday. This is Friday. You could say she died of Bureaucracy.
Papa comes over this morning to tell me the funeral will be at 2, be at his compound by 1. And, then horror upon horrors, Binta’s grandmother, who had been grieving voluminously, died this morning. Just fell over. Now two funerals at 2. “When it’s your time, it’s your time,” says Papa stoically, “that’s all you can say.” But his voice says a lot more. It is hoarse and rough, full of disbelief. Dissociated from his body. His voice is crying.
The Funeral
Five hundred Muslim men are walking at a good clip through Old Jashwang. I made it to Papa’s at 1 and Binta had already been buried – we are now going to bury Aja Amie Susso, her grandmother, and the traffic on the main highway stops as we make our way to the cemetery.
I run into the star of yesterday’s Kora Festival, Alhaji Mbaye, a bravura kora player and shouter griot. With his wife, the extraordinary jelimussow, Mariama Sakho, he had put together the Fest – I empathize, the artist taking on the admin work, common enough worldwide. “I am so sorry,” he begins, “and the death of her best friend, too, they were so connected!” “But it was her grandmother.” “Oh yes! Her grandmother, of course!” And I realize I am now taking my part in this great chain of information, the ongoing poem that is the Oral Tradition. I am here as a Susso.
The only women here are the two in the ground. The cemetery is overgrown dried vines, tree stumps, sand. You get the feeling that the event is what matters, after that nothing happens here. Until the next time. Everyone’s packed around the open grave. The Imam speaks maybe a little too long in the broiling sun, I feel the shuffling impatience begin, but we have to suffer a little, and the Imam’s voice is bold and righteous, and speaks, Papa tells me, of the rarity of two deaths in the same house, how we accept the will of Allaah. Plywood on top of the caskets. Some branches and leaves are snapped off of one of the few nearby stumps that still grow, and then the dirt is shoveled in, tossed on, and we all head back. Twenty minutes.
Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/
Papa comes over this morning to tell me the funeral will be at 2, be at his compound by 1. And, then horror upon horrors, Binta’s grandmother, who had been grieving voluminously, died this morning. Just fell over. Now two funerals at 2. “When it’s your time, it’s your time,” says Papa stoically, “that’s all you can say.” But his voice says a lot more. It is hoarse and rough, full of disbelief. Dissociated from his body. His voice is crying.
The Funeral
Five hundred Muslim men are walking at a good clip through Old Jashwang. I made it to Papa’s at 1 and Binta had already been buried – we are now going to bury Aja Amie Susso, her grandmother, and the traffic on the main highway stops as we make our way to the cemetery.
I run into the star of yesterday’s Kora Festival, Alhaji Mbaye, a bravura kora player and shouter griot. With his wife, the extraordinary jelimussow, Mariama Sakho, he had put together the Fest – I empathize, the artist taking on the admin work, common enough worldwide. “I am so sorry,” he begins, “and the death of her best friend, too, they were so connected!” “But it was her grandmother.” “Oh yes! Her grandmother, of course!” And I realize I am now taking my part in this great chain of information, the ongoing poem that is the Oral Tradition. I am here as a Susso.
The only women here are the two in the ground. The cemetery is overgrown dried vines, tree stumps, sand. You get the feeling that the event is what matters, after that nothing happens here. Until the next time. Everyone’s packed around the open grave. The Imam speaks maybe a little too long in the broiling sun, I feel the shuffling impatience begin, but we have to suffer a little, and the Imam’s voice is bold and righteous, and speaks, Papa tells me, of the rarity of two deaths in the same house, how we accept the will of Allaah. Plywood on top of the caskets. Some branches and leaves are snapped off of one of the few nearby stumps that still grow, and then the dirt is shoveled in, tossed on, and we all head back. Twenty minutes.
Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/
