Joseph's funeral

We have been so busy, it will take several blogs to catch up. Tuesday we went to the funeral of the Branch President's uncle. He'd died in Nairobi a month after he'd joined the church of high blood pressure. We left about 8:30am with a set of missionaries and got there about 9:30-10. Someone met us by the road and showed us the way. Good thing!

One of the uncles had a lovely home and we were served "tea" there-- hot cocoa, bread and butter, and "ground nuts" or peanuts that were freshly roasted and hot, but unsalted. Then about 11or so we wandered over to the deceased's shamba where pavilions had been set up-- one for the deceased and one for the choir and speakers. The deceased's relatives sat out in the sun under umbrellas.

The first part of the program invited all the fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, children, cousins, the village chief, friends and neighbors to comment. Here, anyone of the father's generation can be called father, any uncles of the grandfather's generation are also called Grandfather, and so on. So sometimes it's hard to know who is really related to whom.

Then all the people from other churches were invited to participate by singing and we had many groups that sang. They have such lovely voices. We were told that typically if one church performed the services, other churches were excluded, so including them made them very happy.

Then came the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint portion... er... African style. While the program looked simple, indeed many people spoke. Suddenly Elder Fox and I found out that we were the next speakers! Elder Fox did a masterful job on the plan of Salvation. Oh, did I mention that all the previous talks were either in Swahili or Luyah? So we had translators. Finally about 2:30 they gathered all the priesthood holders and had them move the casket to the burial site-- about 30 feet away.
The choir sang while they were moving the casket. Then we sang in kind of a processional over to the grave site. One of the elders said the casket weighed about 400 lbs. I guess he was a big man. Some got into the grave to help lower the casket in. (There was kind of a lip on the sides part way down.) They lowered, then covered the casket with branches, then corrugated tin, then the filled in the grave. The elders--especially Elder Hays-- lent major cool points to the white guys because he actually helped out and even shoveled dirt. The relatives were very impressed white person would do that.

The choirs sang during the entire shoveling in process. Part way through, the African choirs took over. I happened to be standing near them. The songs are simple and repetitious, with a leader saying the words and the choir repeating them. So I joined in. I think they liked that, too.

When it was finally over, we went to the widow's house to offer a prayer and blessing on her house. Oh, did I mention she'd just given birth to a baby less than a week ago, and had to sit in the sun for these many hours? Then we headed back to the living Uncle's house each carrying a chair. There we were served a lovely meal of rice, ugali, chicken stew, goat stew, and cooked cabbage.
We left about 4 pm. Due to the rough roads, by about 4:40, we knew we would not make it back in time for Institute at 5pm. I've learned a wonderful thing in Kenya. I've learned to send a text to multiple recipients. So we texted everyone that we had a number for that Institute would be canceled. We arrived home about 5:30 and found a few people waiting for Institute. But they were good natured about it's cancellation.

I had hoped to put the videos in where they made sense, but i can't seem to move pictures today. So below you'll find part of the road... er... path to the uncle's house. Then one of the women singing during the covering of the grave.