World Cup and Community Tragedy (Part II)

The next day all the teachers traveled together to Niquisse's hometown, about 20 kms down the road for the funeral. There were hundreds of people, including some students who walked the entire way and teachers from several neighboring schools. Everyone contributed money or food to help the family with the expenses of procuring a coffin and feeding some of the many attendees. All the donations were documented and read publically before the ceremony, including the 40 Meticais (approximately $1) given by the American teachers. We didn't understand much of what was said, it was mostly in Chichewa, but the sadness was evident. In his grief, Niquisse asked us to scratch his son's name from our roll sheets. The loss of Van Dam was very sad, but not uncommon given the amount of poverty and disease faced by our community- this is the second of Janet's 9th grade French students to die this year. But possibly because death is such a part of life here, the mourning
is intense and fast and then everything carries on, as best as possible.