Women at the backside of the house pound corn, making solid corn pieces into powder with a frightening strength of arm. Diagonally back from them, more women sit on the ground surrounded by pink and orange flowers, branches, and leaves that they weave into funereal crowns. To complete the circle around the house compound are usually two groups of men chatting on benches in an array of suits, ties, hats, buttoned down shirts, torn pants, ironed pants, and canes. I know funerals are an odd thing to miss, but I miss how death is dealt with back home.
In Malawi much of the day of the funeral is spent with women cooking, making wreaths, while the men chat until the burial and the service takes place. This beginning part is similar to a condensed version of the roles and acts of Malawian life. The women work, babies tied to back, while men chat amongst themselves dealing with what they deem as serious issues and concerns. I just went to a funeral of the father of a chief I have been working with closely and has become a good friend. I have been to other funerals before and am usually content helping to cut flowers and sitting with the women as they bind flower and leaf. But this time when I really knew a man who this particular death had affected, I wanted a wake or a service or to sit shiva. I wanted to enter some backroom of a church or an overly pink carpeted room of a funeral home or someone’s house. I wanted to shake hands and hug and retrieve cups of coffee for people. I wanted to then sit in folding chairs while people spoke of him so I could know him and know who loved him and feel closure. At the time I wanted this so much I almost felt that it was the right way and that all involved with the Malawian funeral were not going through a healthy mourning process. I then thought about how I had felt this a couple of days before when talking to a group of Malawian men while waiting for a meeting. This conversation started with the question of “what church did I belong to?” I responded saying I wasn’t Christian and didn’t belong to a Christian church. For some reason Malawians always laugh when I mention this. I am frequently unclear what motivates their laughter. Is it because they have no other reaction? Is it just that ridiculous to them? Or maybe they are just laughing as they contemplate how I am going to hell. In any case their laughter pisses me off each and every time. We started talking about what I believed and what I thought of Jesus. I told them that I thought Jesus had been an amazing leader and incredible guy, but that I did not personally believe he was the son of god. For me god was more of a created space. I then asked them what they believed. Granted English is not any of their first languages, but when they responded to me, they didn’t really have anything to say. They kept repeating that Jesus was the son of god, as if that explained all the nooks and crannies of their faith. And maybe it does, but I was hoping for some clarification so I asked them what or who specifically is your god? They laughed again and asked me for the second time what I believed. I told them I believed in people and in a space of god that occurs between people. I believe god is a space in which people fall in love, or feel a responsibility to be kind to people for no other reason than that they are people, a space where people feel compelled to create justice for no true logical reason except that they feel others should have it. A space where people want to revitalize a greater good, a graceful sense of soul, and a want to reignite so much of what people have lost and destroyed.
I tried again, “So what is your god like? Who or what do you pray to?” They then said they needed to take me to church and then I would see. I would see what? I told them I had been to many different Malawian churches and I wanted to know specifically what they believed. At this point after another round of laughter I asked them what they thought about the fact that Malawi did not have any Christian churches until white missionaries came over to preach about Jesus. Again they were not so interested in answering this directly as they were interested in finding ways to get me to attend church. As soon as possible. After moving to conversations on the bible and other religions, I found I was distractedly stuck on recognizing a disturbing feeling of pushing them to believe what I believe. I found myself having urges to rant on and yell; “Don’t you want to believe that god is a space in which you fall in love?” “Why not believe in being kind as a direct act of god being in you and in a space between?” “Why not believe in god spaces that motivate people to act not for a space in heaven but for others?”
I didn’t yell at them and they then asked if that was all I believed. In that moment I answered, “What else is there?” But upon reflection I think I should have answered, “That’s enough for me.” It may not be enough for the men I sat with. They have all most likely experienced a lot more of loss faith in people, by just living at the village level in a country that as a whole battles poverty, malaria, and HIV/AIDS to the extreme daily. Perhaps for them there is a need to have faith in something or someone who is looking out for them without them seeing him, her, or it in order for them to engage in the practices of believing in people and loving them. At the end of the day I probably was anxious to have someone else agree to my beliefs so I wouldn’t feel as alone and these men are probably feeling something similar. They feel less alone with Jesus, I feel less alone with some shared space I am continually inventing and reinventing. I’m sure if all the men I talked to practiced what they truly believed and what they understand of the bible, and if I fully practiced what I believed and what I understand of the spaces between, we’d see a lot more similarities than differences and see more of a path in that continual quest not to be or feel alone.
