Well, I have reached a new level of understanding of Dominican rural culture in the last week. You have all read my rants and raves about what it is like to live here, so I will spare you a complete description of Geronimo and I sitting in my house in the pouring rain typing on a dying battery because we haven..t had electricity in three days, constantly moving my chair around the house because new leaks keep chasing my computer around the house. That is old news. Funerals, man; that is what I am talking about. I never thought about it before, but I really think that you can learn a lot from a culture by how they treat their dead. About three weeks ago, my neighbor Carolina came back from summer vacation in Santiago with her uncle Pablo..s family. While it is very common for kids to spend time with their extended families during school breaks here, Carolina went to help her aunt take care of Pablo, who was in the final stages of treatment for what people say was bone cancer. Of course, I am not really sure what kind of cancer he had, because the extent of people..s medical knowledge beyond the common cold consists of two things: 1.) Bad blood, or 2.) Bad bones. Anyway, three weeks ago, it seemed that the last course of treatment was ineffective, and Carolina brought Pablo back to his family here to die. For two weeks he laid in bed, not eating, not speaking- just wasting away and waiting to die. Before I continue, I want to explain that death is the rural Dominican..s specialty. Since I have been living in El Yayal, I have been to over 20 "velas", or deathdays, and not a single birthday. The saying that death is a part of life really takes on new meaning here. When a person dies here, the funeral starts immediately with a vigil through the night and into the day until he or she is buried 24 hours after death. During the funeral, the local deacon announces the schedule for the following 9-day period of mourning that will take place at the family's house. There is a scheduled service every evening, but the week is scattered w
ith other gatherings, religious readings, and events that could only be described as séances where they attempt to speak directly to God on Pablo..s behalf to ensure his place in heaven. All of the surrounding communities, churches and civic organizations are assigned days in which they must attend, though they are welcome to attend more. This ensures that there is an adequate amount of people at each service. Of course, any close neighbors, friends and relatives in addition to attending all services, are assumed to keep watch over the house throughout the nine days, cleaning in the morning, preparing food and drink for the mourners during the day, and tending to the late night stragglers that often fall asleep at the house. From what I can tell, it is somewhat of a contest between these ..elite mourners.. to see who can spend the most time at the house and go without sleep for the longest. Every morning for these 9 days the only conversation in the street and the market is about who ..amanecio.. (watched the sun rise) at Pablo..s house the night before. The ninth day of mourning is completed with the first vela/deathday. This first vela, which will be one of seven held yearly on the anniversary of Pablo..s death, is the most important, more so even than the funeral, and it is when
the majority of relatives from out of town come to mourn. This is also when the elite squad is most important, because in addition to the traditional tea, juice, boiled plantains, coffee, etc., velas require that the family prepare a dessert called arroz con leche, which, to be honest, was really the main draw to those first 5-10 velas that I went to, before I really knew what was going on. It is just basically rice and milk with an unmentionable amount of sugar and a dash of cinnamon, but it is a great Dominican version of a Deathday cake. So that is the basic rundown of how death is handled in the Domincan Republic. But dare you ask the question, ..Why?... Well, here it is believed that only by the effort of those left behind can Pablo..s place in heaven be secured, so you better believe that everybody is going to give it their all. They keep vigil, say the rosary, pray, sing, hold services. And then there is the crying. How do I explain the crying..From the m
oment a loved one dies, the family and all the members of the elite squad are expected to bawl their eyes out on command until the end of the 9 days of mourning. Not to do so is to be considered a heartless, unfeeling, even Godless creature who just may be possessed by the devil or cursed by some local witch. Even before I had been to a funeral, I had heard stories about men and women who didn..t cry at their loved ones funerals. You don..t want to go there. The family clears out one room of their house to be reserved solely for crying. All of the closest family members stay in the room during the night vigil before the funeral, and it is expected that everyone who comes to pay their respects make their rounds in this room. This duty is one that I would not recommend attempting alone. My friend Pepsi waited outside for over an hour because she couldn..t find anyone to come in with her. The reason that it is best to have a partner is because you need someone to hand off to. When you enter the room, you are confronted with a seemingly unending mass of hysterical men and women all wailing and hurtling themselves at you. If you do
n't work in pairs, you are liable to get stuck with a mourner, and there is nothing worse than pulling away from the hysteria without giving them someone else to grab on to. Luckily for the second tier mourners, once you go through the hysteria ritual once you are exempt for the rest of the nine days. This is a nice clause in the mourning contract, because it allows the family to get things done. Somehow though, through the hundreds of people that come through the house during these nine days, the family keeps a running tally of those who they have and have not cried with. And any time someone new shows up the elite squad has to drop everything, go to the crying room and really let it loose for all its worth. It looks exhausting. I made the mistake of taking a break during a low time one day in the crying room because that was where the fan was, and before I knew it a whole truck of out-of-town relatives arrived before I could escape to the kitchen. I got stuck in there before I knew what happened, and I just left halfway through the crying circle because I couldn..t do it. I was on the outs with the grandmother for quite awhile for that one. I had to pull the stupid American card, or I don..t think that she ever would have forgiven me. One thing about the crying thing that has been tough for me to reconcile has been how easy it is for these women to turn it off. I understand it, because you can..t run a good funeral and wake if you are hysterically sobbing the entire time, but there is just something peculiar about watching a woman wail her guts out for 5 minutes and then walk out of the room and make jokes with me about how fat I am getting the next second. Something about it just doesn..t ring true, but that is just me. Seriously though, the other day they were having a séance in the back yard and this girl was crying so hysterically she started to have seizures/be possessed by the dead spirit of Pablo. Everyone laid their hands on to help her deal with her possession which lasted the duration of the service. After it was over, she got up and started handing out cups of juice. No one batted an eye.If you would like to get a better idea of what I am talking about, I have uploaded some pictures of the funeral. I have become the town photographer, and the ones where they actually open the casket and lift Pablo up to get the good shot are especially nice. You should take a look. http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=1s2qj9un.7vmk9fiv&Uy=rfxmfa&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1Or, if you would just like to see some of my other recent adventures, check this link out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50079515@N00/
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